


Dragons are all just cleverly disguised Cats, really.

by Shadowsedai



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Adorable Merrill (Dragon Age), Alternate Universe of an Alternate Universe, Anders and Justice friendly version of history, Angst, Barely competent Hawke, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Isabela is a Good Friend, Mythal/Flemeth's A+ parenting., Slightly unfairly bashed Fenris, Slow Burn, Sweet Merrill (Dragon Age), might make more sense if you read Complications and Predators first., sort of commissioned., templars die. like a lot of them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2020-01-10 19:50:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 40
Words: 101,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18414704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowsedai/pseuds/Shadowsedai
Summary: Anders rescues an odd little elven Somniari from a bunch of templars, and the path of the world shifts. Whether for the better or not might depend only on where you are standing when the world falls.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I almost found a beta for my other story, and then he asked "But what if Anders had rescued "Foxfire" instead of Cullen?"  
> Admittedly, the tags here are spoilers for up to Chapter 11 of that story as well. Somewhat different origin verse, with his male amell+ Morrigan instead of female amell+Leliana. Beware spoilers here generally, since background might come up at different rates in in different storylines, but if you're caught up on Complications, you should be fine. every Chapter is run by the "commissioner/ plotbunny instigator" first.  
> Hilariously, he read just far enough between suggesting this story and getting the first chapter that he grasped why I told him "That... That is probably not the 'Good End' version".

Anders stepped over the Templars as they dropped, lightning still arcing over the metal armor some of them wore. They hadn't even seen him coming, too focused on the girl they had pinned against the wall. He gritted his teeth as he cautiously approached her, forcing Justice back a little, trying to look as non threatening as possible. That last thing she needed was another man looming over her right now, but he needed to see how badly they had hurt her.  For a half moment, he stared, attempting to process the image of silver white lyrium branded over olive toned Tevene skin, anger rising again. But the patterns were different, more intricately runed over a far more delicate frame, eyes more blue than green peering hesitantly through the long tangles of filthy, almost white hair. He could see the full extent of the metallic tattoos, as well as the pattern of bruises and bite marks, too familiar from years in the tower.

A faint clank, and cursing, and Anders lashed out at the Templar at the edge of the tunnel, dropping him before he could straighten his breeches, let alone focus enough for a smite. The elven girl cowered back at the sound of clattering armor, backing further away from the Templars. Or trying to, the gemmed silver collar around her throat flaring, a translucent chain between it and the matching cuff the Templar wore flickering briefly visible. She yelped slightly as it went taut, hunching further in on herself.  

Reluctantly, he reached down, tugging the cuff bracelet loose and examining the ancient styled binding runes etched over every bit of space between the stones that matched the eyes still warily watching him. She moved closer, forcing herself back up onto her knees, eyes fixed on the ground as she held herself rigidly still.   He reached for her, Justice still flickering just under his skin, trying to figure out the key to getting the binding off her. However the solid, unbroken band of gemmed metal had been placed around her neck, she had been wearing it long enough there was a lightly scarred line underneath it. He could feel the lyrium in her skin, alive with her magic in a way Fenris's never was, singing something Justice could hear, that he only caught the echoes of.   The brands lit softly under his fingers, the same dim glow sparking out in cracked lines over his own skin, and she blinked at him, some of the tension fading from her posture. “It will be alright, I can fix this, help you...” Anders pushed the anger back, and the spirit with it, reaching out with his own healing magic. 

It sparked, fighting the magic soaked lyrium the way the fade spirit hadn't, the brands flaring angrily as she screamed with the pain of a sudden manaclash. “Please, I'll be good, please, Master, I'm sorry...” 

Anders yanked his hands back, as the girl collapsed into a whimpering heap, every curse he had ever heard running through his head and coalescing into something that approximated 'I'm a damn idiot'.  He pulled his magic back, running just enough mana back parallel to her own aura to make sure none of her injuries were life threatening. She was badly bruised, but everything else seemed mostly superficial, not bad enough to risk casting until he figured out how to work around the lyrium. Just because she was currently unconscious didn't mean the manaclash wouldn't still hurt. He wrapped his coat over her naked shoulders, trying to figure out a plan. 

Leaving her here was out of the question. Even before Justice had joined him, he wouldn't have abandoned her to that. Wherever the Templars had found her, the only use they had for her was obvious, and that had been before they found her in a circle of their dead brethren.  Should she wake up before more of them returned, she still couldn't escape with that collar. That damn collar meant he couldn't just pass her on to the mage underground, either. Anyone else he handed her over to had to be trustworthy enough to be given that much control over her.  A short list, even among the other rebels. Andraste's flaming knickers, before Justice he wasn't sure if even he should have been on that list. 

He picked up her still limp form, carefully keeping his hands on the outside of his coat, grateful she was as tiny and light as she looked.  She didn't wake, even when he dropped her onto a cot back at the clinic. A fair bit of digging later, he draped a threadbare blanket over her and the coat, folding a worn tunic and leggings to set over her feet where she could find them when she woke.   A bit of fiddling with the bracelet let him loosen it's limits on her, as far as it would let him. The little elf would likely be unsettled enough, waking in a strange place after an ordeal like that, without any extra tugs from the collar. 

 

Anders bolted awake some hours later, making the small elf sitting at the foot of his bed flinch back a bit, those large, luminously blue green eyes blinking at him. “Good morning, new master!” she chirped at him. “I cleaned as much as I could, but I couldn't find anything I could use to make your breakfast.” She added, somehow both earnest and worried. 

He wasn't unsure if the sound at the back of his mind was Justice muttering or laughing at him. “I'm not your master,” he told her, resisting the urge to bury his face back in his thin pillow. She tilted her head like a baffled cat, glancing from the his face to the runed bracelet on his wrist. “I'm going to get that collar off you, wherever the Templars found something like that.”  She looked even more confused. “I'm Anders.” 

“Uh, Master Anders? What's a Templar?” she hesitantly asked.

“The humans in heavy armor that had you in the tunnels, the ones that were hurting you,” he explained, through slightly gritted teeth. “Please don't call me master. It's just Anders.”

“The sword marked ones that Mistress Hadriana told me to stay with?”  She huddled in on herself a little,chewing on her lip. “I tried to be good and do what I was told, but they kept hurting me anyways.”

“Templars are horrible people as a general rule, especially here,” Anders soothed. “But I won't let them hurt you again.  Them or whoever handed you over to them.” She smiled at him, still a little hesitantly, and he hauled himself out of bed, grateful he had slept in clothes last night. The little elf hadn't been exaggerating about cleaning. Everything in his clinic looked like it had been scrubbed within a inch of its life. “I don't think this place has ever been this clean, so thank you, uh..” Justice flickered, pushing a name forward out of nothing. “Firefox?”

Her face lit up cheerfully. “That's what Hope calls me. Valor usually calls me Lady Foxfire, but he's odd like that.  I like being called Fox. It fits.” She handed him back his neatly folded coat, smiling brightly.

“Well, I'm glad I got you away from the Templars when I did,” he muttered. “You were pretty banged up last night...”

“I...I wasn't told not to heal myself. I didn't mean to overstep, mas.. Anders. I should have asked first, I'm sorry,” she babbled, biting her lip again.

“No, No it's fine. You are allowed to use any magic you want. Just stay put, and I'll go get us some food.  And a metal file, I think.” He assured her, feeling almost guilty at the relief in those eyes.

  
  


She was still precisely where he had left her when Anders got back from the market with a weeks worth of food for two.  Fox had moved maybe half a foot, sitting cross legged on the floor, tracing idle lines of fire over the rough stone. The human scaled linen tunic he had scrounged for her had slipped part way down her shoulder, giving him a clear view of the silver white glyphs worked into the the olive skin of her graceful neck and shoulder.  There had been a time when he would have already been running his best lines on a girl like that. She looked up at him as he entered, eyes gleaming like aquamarines in the lamplight. “Mas...uh, Anders! You're back.”

“is there a particular reason you're sitting on the floor?” he asked, walking past  to drop the basket of bread and sundries on his table. Between the food and the usual clinic supplies, his coin purse was empty again. He'd have to think of something to get by again when it ran out, maybe try to borrow something from Varric again. Shorting himself on food was one thing with Justice to lean on, but he had Fox to look after now as well.

“You said to stay put.” She sounded baffled again. “I'm being good.  And I can be really useful all the time so you don't need a kennel to keep me in when I'm not healing, or give me back to Master Danarius or Mistress Hadriana,” she insisted, eyes wide, still sitting on the floor with fire under her palm. “I can clean and I can sort of cook and I'm really good at healing. I don't want to go back to sitting alone in the dark, please.”

“Andraste's flaming knickerweasels. I am not going to send you back anywhere. There aren't going to be any cages, or kennels here, ever.”  Anders told her, trying to keep the lightning at his fingers under control.

A long conversation, several melted files, a fair amount of cursing and flinching, and a bit of breakfast later, a still collared Fox was staring at the human mage with something that approached adoration. “So I get to eat at a table, I get my own actual bed, and you're going to keep looking for a way to get the binding collar off?” She listed in disbelief.”And all you ask is that I help out healing people here in your clinic?” 

“You are entirely too impressed by anything on that list,” the blond healer noted with a wince. “I'm not going to make you eat off or sleep on the floor.  I'm also never going to order you to do anything that involves taking your clothes off, for me or anyone else.”

“I haven't had a bed since...” she looked thoughtful. “I can't remember when.  I vaguely remember having a padded basket next to my old master's bed when I was little, but... I think I'll have to tell Hope I've stumbled into that 'things get better' idea she kept bringing up.”  He brought up a hand to ruffle her still tangled hair, and she flinched, fractionally. 

Anders pulled his hand back, and she bit her lip uncertainly. “Sorry. I shouldn't presume...” he started to apologize.  She pulled herself up onto the bench, all her tattoos lighting in a quick flare. When the light dimmed, a small fox crouched where she had been, outsized ears twitching alertly. Edging closer, she tilted her head to watch him.  With a soft smile, he extended his hand back to her, and she gently pressed her muzzle into his palm. Without thinking about it, his fingers dug into the soft, silvery fur, and she lifted her head into the touch. Fox leaned against him, tucking her tail around her feet, and let herself relax.


	2. Distraction

 

She hadn't been joking about being good at healing, and Anders was surprised at how good it felt, how much weight off his shoulders it meant to have a second set of willing hands in the clinic.  Before the expedition, Hawke had made a few cursory efforts to help out, but the ice mage was very close to useless where the entire creation school was concerned. The Dalish bloodmage had also offered, but was even worse at healing than Gerard. Fox was his equal where healing was concerned, possibly marginally his better. When he figured out how to get that damn collar off her, or at least disabled the binding enchantments that linked it to what she referred to as the leash key, he would miss having her around.

"You seem extra cheerful today," he told her, grabbing his own armload of supplies to put back on the makeshift shelving.

"It's a good day. Healing always feels steadier, soothing in a way. And the people... I'm not just fixing them so someone can keep torturing them, so..." She set down the handful of glass vials and took a deep breath. "We're helping them. And I haven't been shoved into a stone closet with only a kicked over water bowl for company in almost two weeks now. Today is a good day."  She went back to tidying, flexing her neck to ease the tension in her spine.

 

The smite caught him by surprise, as he tried to take a new way back from Lowtown. He'd managed to convince Merrill into loaning him some coin and herbs, at least until the next Wicked Grace night. She'd even managed to find some old clothes that were closer to Fox's size, though he was hoping to have the collar off before risking introducing the two. He hadn't watched his path close enough, and the templar caught him off guard.

 He fought the pain of the smite, trying to focus enough to at least bring his staff  up before the sword came down. There was a flare of light from a corner, and flame wrapped around the armored knight.  "Master Anders? Are you alright?" A familiar voice asked as the Templar fell, Fox stepping hesitantly out of the shadows. She stared at the raw flesh visible at the edges of the heat warped metal, and swallowed. "Oh. I didn't mean to...I just wanted him not to hurt you... He's dead."

"I'm fine, or I will be. You might have saved my life just now." He pushed back to his feet, leaning a hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "Look at me, Fox," he urged, and she glanced away from the corpse, stricken blue green eyes settling on his dark brown eyes. "He would have killed me. He would have killed you, just for having magic and not being locked up. Never feel bad for killing someone who would hunt you for existing, okay?"

Fox nodded, nibbling at her lip. "Alright. If... Should we get rid of the body? If more come, and they find him, it'll be worse, right?"

"It would. Good thinking." Between the two of them, they managed to drag the corpse off the main path, shoving it down an old mine shaft. "With any luck, the rats will eat enough of him it's less obvious a mage took him out."

 

 

He could hear the scattered Templars on their trail, and the youngest of the mages on the trip were clearly exhausted. Anders pulled the group back into a small alley, hoping the apprentices could catch their breath before they were found.  Footsteps sounded, far too close, and he could feel Justice rising.

A flicker of lyrium glow, and Fox peered around the corner, a small blossom of flame in her palm lighting her way. She grinned a little when she saw Anders standing in front of the other mages. "So this is what you do when you leave the clinic at night," she mused quietly. "Need any help?"

"How are you in a fight? You dealt with that one Templar well enough, but..." he asked, and she tilted her hand noncommittally. "You're in as much danger out here as we are. I wish you had  stayed at the clinic."

"Oh, I don't know. I can think of something I could do that you can't." She retorted, taking a step back after she studied the tired mages behind the blond healer. "Wait five minutes. Then get them out while the coast is clear. I have a plan." She smiled at him before vanishing into the dark. He saw a spell wisp go up in the distance, a flare of fire following it, and heard the Templars move away, following the trail she left.

"Healer? What's she doing?" One of the young mages asked, arm around the weary youngest.

"Buying us time," he whispered back. He couldn't sense any fear through the leash key, just serene confidence, absolute focus. "We'll use it as best we can."

 

 

He managed to get them passed on to the next waystation on the underground, and headed back to his clinic. The leashkey told him she was still in Darktown, and still alright, but...

A small cat, its long silver tabby fur splotched with dark mud, strolled into the clinic. It settled on a cot by the door, making a brief attempt to clean some of the muck from its bedraggled tail. “Nope, that's... that's going to require actual soap and water, I think,” Fox remarked as she shifted back. “Did you get the little ones out?”

“Yes, thank you. Do you have any idea how many things could have gone wrong with that stunt?” Anders asked, even as he felt a knot in his chest ease. “Darktown is incredibly dangerous.”

“Oh, I noticed. So did the Templars who chased a spell wisp into a large patch of Chokedamp. The ones that remained gave up after that when the bright shiny trail they had been following petered out, without thinking to check for cat prints. More cats than foxes in the city, despite my preferences,” she shrugged, grinning slightly even as she studied his expression.

“If they had caught you...” Anders leaned against the cot, trying to get images out of his head.

“If they had caught me, I'd be lucky to end up dead.” She shrugged again, looking away. “But the same goes for the rest of you.  I've gotten a good look at that island fortress the Templars rule. I've been places that looked an awful lot like that before, but at least the ones I've been in were honest about calling me a slave. And I...”  Fox pulled her feet up under her on the cot, still not looking at him. “We might not have Templars, but we still have Tranquil in Tevinter. I knew what I was risking just as well as I knew what I was risking it for.”

“Even with mages in charge, they still use the ritual?” Anders asked, looking flabbergasted.

“Here's the trick. Mages aren't in charge. The Magisterium is.  Abuse of magic is a very versatile accusation.” Fox pushed a tangled lock of hair back behind her long ear, and smiled up at him. “All that aside, it's really nice to have a master who actually worries about me now.”

“I am not your...” He started, then stopped, noticing the amused grin she wore and shaking his head. “Just be careful. I won't say the help wasn't needed. If you want to keep helping with the mage underground, that's up to you.”

“Oh, anytime you need a distraction. Luring scary people out of the way so scared people can get away has a comfortingly familiar feel to it.” She grinned, and tossed a small, jingling pouch onto the table. “Some of the Templars who didn't make it out of the miasma had coin in their pockets. I'll go pick up some more food and supplies tomorrow.”


	3. Compliance

“Hey, Blondie, we need a favor.” Varric helped one of Ander's least favorite people through the clinic door. “We got ambushed on the coast, and someone managed to hit Broody with a flying stone fist.”

With a resigned sigh, Anders reached out. “Just cracked ribs. You're lucky,” he commented, as he let the spell mend the bones and ease the bruising. The lyrium in the warrior's skin flickered slightly under the magic, and the blond healer hesitated.

He had picked up enough details from Fox about her life before he had found her. The broody Tevinter before him was an abrasive pain to deal with, but both elves had clearly been through as much in Tevinter as he had in the tower. “Fenris, I...” Anders tried to think of the best way to phrase an apology. “Some of the things I said to you, they might have been...”

Fenris focused a resigned glare at the healer. It had been a long day, and he had had more than enough dealings with errant mages. If it wasn't for the risk of still being hunted, he would have wrapped the ribs and ignored the dwarf's suggestion. He was bruised, battered, annoyed at his pasts tendency to haunt him, and had no idea what the abomination was babbling at him about now, but... Something sparkled in the lamplight, bright in the cleaner than usual but still drab clinic. There was a familiar bracelet around the healer's thin wrist, runed silver worked with small aquamarine stones. It couldn't be what he thought. Why would they have possibly brought her? And why would this mage...

“Anders, I got a good bargain on some of the food, but Tomwise was out of spindleweed. Do we have enough left to get by until next wee...” Fox froze, still carrying an armload of full baskets and bags, when she saw the other Tevinter.

She looked better, Fenris noted. Her long, tangled mess of hair had been tamed,cut shorter and tied into a braid with a frayed ribbon. She was dressed in a neatly patched tunic and skirt instead of the rags he was used to seeing.  But she still wore the binding collar, and that meant... “Ah, I see you've mastered the next step to making yourself a magister. Owning slaves.” he snarked, turning back to glare at the human mage.

 

Anders' jaw snapped audibly closed, his apology forgotten, as Fox tossed her purchases onto the nearest surface.  “Avanna, puppy. It's been a while. Hadriana is here looking for you, by the way.” She remarked, staring at the other former slave with annoyed distaste.

“I noticed that. What possessed her to bring a _ incaensor _ along this far south?” he retorted, returning the look with a great deal of added suspicion.

“Ah, well, she decided she needed something to distract the Templars while she tracked you down. Apparently, I make a good bribe.” She replied through gritted teeth.

“Being whored out has always been one of your more marketable skills,” he noted sourly. “I'm sure it's serving you well with your new master.”

“Oh, I suppose it isn't as handy as being a Magister's bitch. But not all of us have the right temperaments to be lap dogs,” she responded in a sickly sweet tone, fists white knuckled behind her back.

“I'm a lapdog? You've spent years being willing to lick the feet of anyone willing to let you out of your kennel!” He hissed. 

“Which one of us got collared as a flight risk and which one dragged the other in, puppy!” She unclenched her hands,  the row of red crescent shaped nail marks over her palm blossoming flames.

“After the rebellion stunt you pulled when he bought you, your status as a fertile Somniari was the only thing that got you collared instead of Tranquil,” Fenris snarled, then flinched back, another thought occurring to him.

“That I do remember. Get out, Puppy. I think my current master will forgive me if I'm less than careful of your well being.”  She bared her teeth at him, the flames wrapping up her arms.

 

She stared at the door the other Tevinter had slammed behind him, breathing hard. Slowly, the writhing flames over her skin flickered out, and she picked all her bags back up, hauling them silently to the far side of the room.

“He isn't allowed back,” Anders said flatly, staring after the elven healer. 

“Sure. So, Blondie, how long have you had a shorter, spitfire version of Broody living in your clinic?” Varric asked, shifting his crossbow.

“A few weeks. It's an odd situation, and she doesn't have anywhere else she can go right now.” Anders glanced back at the dwarf. “I'm not joking. Don't bring Fenris back here.”

“You should bring her down to the Hanged Man, if you ever deign to show up for card night again,” the rogue suggested.

“Now you're joking,” the blond apostate snorted. “ I can't see that working out well.”

 

“Is there anything I can do?” Anders asked, moving to help the shorter mage put supplies away.

“Well, you could help me keep him alive while I fill his guts with burning embers...” she glanced up at the other healer, seeming to look past his dark brown eyes for a moment, and sighed. “That was primarily intended as hyperbole. I'm not really committed to the idea of the puppy being dead right now, I'm just... He upsets me, and I didn't expect him here. Before Danarius left him behind in Seheron, he was so...” She set down the jars she was shelving, leaning against the pillar without looking at the other mage.

“I should have told you about him before he showed up. It's just been so busy the last month, and I...” He stopped, not sure how to finish. Liked having you to myself? Didn't want a repeat of Gerry Hawke flirting, showing up at the clinic constantly, then ghosting him in favor of a broody elf with a big sword? “I didn't realize his dislike of mages extended to other actual slaves.”

“Its fine. I knew he was somewhere in the city, there was always a chance our paths would cross.  I could probably have not... He was always a safe target to snap at, because he wouldn't deviate from whatever our master told him he could do to me. He was a obedient, loyal guard dog, right until he was left behind.”  She frowned, shoving her braid back over her shoulder and picking up another jar. “Compliance is not obedience. It's the difference between doing what you are told to avoid the sword over your head and doing what you are told because it has never occurred to you to do anything else. From everything you've told me, you were like me. You complied, because it gave you more chances to  try running again. I think that the first time the idea he could run ever occurred to Fenris was when Danarius went to retrieve him from Seheron, the idea that he didn't have to obey. And when I think that, layer it over everything he did, I pity him as much as I ever hated him. And I did hate him. I hated him and I went out of my way to make his life more difficult.” She stretched up onto her toes,  sliding the jar over the edge of a high shelf. “None of which excuses what he said to you, nor all of what he said to me.”

“The more I talk to you, the less I think running away to Tevinter was ever a good idea, even if I had ever gotten that far. Your reality is disrupting any number of cherished childhood dreams.”  He reached up, pushing the jar more securely onto the shelf, smiling ruefully at her.

“But it's gorgeous this time of year,” she laughed. “There is nothing like the gardens in Minrathous in full summer bloom,” she added wistfully.

“That wasn't what I expected you to say.” Anders blinked at her.

“There is very little wrong with back home that barricading the doors of the Magisterium and burning it to the ground wouldn't make a good start to fixing. Without factions of the Magisters arranging assassinations for for any Archon who tries to outlaw slavery, we might get somewhere eventually.” She shook her head, still smiling wistfully.  “Tevinter... The rot goes deep, but it isn't unsalvageable. There are good things there, good people. For all the broken edges, it's still home. If only...”

“That is a little more what I expected from you, oddly enough.” He rearranged small jars of dried herbs, checking that the corked lids were tight, frowning slightly at some of them. “Would you really go back, fight to fix everything, if you could?”

“Maybe.” she looked thoughtful. “I don't think there will be another idiot who thinks adding a Somniari to their breeding program is worth the risk, even if they don't realize the lyrium effectively sterilized me. It will come down to death or Tranquility when I get caught, and I'm far enough out of the loop with the undergrounds there that if I go back on my own...” She trailed off, shrugging noncommittally.

“And that only relegates the idea to a maybe?” he chuckled, somewhere between incredulous and impressed. 

“Well, it's only slightly more certain suicide than an apostate running a clinic in the middle of a Templar run city. Two apostates, now,” she noted. “I think I've spent too much time with Hope and Valor. Hope always focuses on the best possible outcome, and Valor loves the idea of impossible odds, near suicidal recklessness. Why, he even unbent enough to suggest that he might think better of Justice for this situation.” Fox smiled ruefully up at the human healer as she leaned against the table, stacking the empty baskets. “So, maybe someday. Unless I talk you into coming with, it's a moot point as long as I wear the collar anyway.” Anders glanced away, rubbing at the bracelet around his wrist, and she elbowed him. “I'm fine here, Anders. Your people need just as much saving as mine, and I like helping.”


	4. Transitive motherhenning.

They sat quietly together for a while before Fox rose, pulling a few things back off the shelf to start stew. 

“Fox, I... how long did they keep you in that kennel Fenris mentioned?” Anders asked, already moving to help slice vegetables, trying not to think of his year alone in the dark.

“I lived in a ten by fifteen foot closet whenever I wasn't needed from the moment I woke up with lyrium embedded in my skin until Hadriana borrowed me for the trip south. Luckily, Danarius is hard enough on his playthings I usually was dragged out for a few hours every couple days. I spent every moment I could sleep tranced, practicing making my chunk of the fade into whatever I wanted it to be, hanging out with Hope, Valor, and anyone else who wandered by,” she said lightly, not looking up from the food.

“I spent a year in solitary after my last escape. The idea of longer...” the blond healer shook his head and dropped the sliced turnips into the pot. “Hawke tried to help a young Somniari at the circle here. It didn't end well.”

“I've been told that the most dangerous time for a new Somniari is right after they start to wake consciously in the Fade, and the younger they are, the less wary... I was lucky. I was very, very young, but Hope found me first. She and Valor looked after me until I was capable of looking after myself in the Fade.” With a flick of her fingers, she lit the flames under the pot, pulling a large wooden spoon out of a cupboard. “As far as the two of them are concerned, they are still looking after me.”

“You still have better taste in friends than some mages I know. I did mention the resident Dalish has a demon talking her through fixing a magic mirror? A pride demon, going by her descriptions.” He reached over her head into a higher shelf. The domesticity of the moment struck him, as he leaned forward slightly into her, pulling down two of the slightly chipped bowls he had managed to acquire. Fox tipped her head back into his chest to smile comfortably at him, trustingly, and he restrained the impulse to kiss her. As close as this moment was to all his dreams of a free life, as much as Fox clearly trusted him, she still wasn't free as long as that collar was around her neck, as long as the leashkey was around his wrist. He shoved his growing feelings, his infatuation with the pretty, clever, fierce Tevinter healer, to the back of his mind, and set the bowls on the rough table, digging for a clean pair of spoons. He had Justice and the cause of all mages to worry about, as well as the well being of every poor soul that slunk into his clinic. This was not the time to force his attentions on the one person who was throwing herself wholeheartedly into helping  him with both.

Fox, humming to herself as she stirred the stew, seemed blissfully ignorant of his train of thought. She ladled a larger portion than he usually took into his bowl, setting it firmly in front of him. “Healing, all magic, burns energy, and you are too thin as it is. Don't think I haven't noticed you shorting your share in my favor, Anders. We have enough food right now, and enough funds to keep the cupboards full a little longer. Even as a Spirit Vessel, you need to eat more.”

“That's a way to refer to it I hadn't heard before. Spirit Vessel has a much nicer ring to it than abomination.” He dug into the food, unable to conceal how hungry he actually was. Warden stamina came at a price, after all, even if he had been relying on Justice to let him subsist on what little he could afford. His spoon hit the bottom of the bowl, and she refilled it before he could even look up.

“Let me guess who could possibly have called you that.” she snorted, sitting down with her own food. “Hope is good at making things sound better, but I'm pretty sure her version is more accurate for what you are. 'Era'elgar', in the elven, I think. Hope also told me I was to give Justice her regards and make sure you were eating right, sleeping.” The hand not holding a spoon flicked dismissively. “Transitive mother henning. I suspect we should just get used to it.”

“Am I given a choice in this?” Anders asked, chuckling, already hearing the answer from the half merged, amused spirit at the back of his mind.

“Not really. Hope will fuss at me a bit, and I'll wake up and fuss over you, and then we'll both fuss over all the desperate and deprived that come to us with renewed energy and good health. You do neither the clinic nor the underground any good by starving yourself, Anders.” She picked at the last shreds of her turnips, filling his bowl a third time as she ladled herself another half helping. “Our usual clientele have nothing, but the charmers who drag you off on adventures to keep them alive could probably stand to pitch in a little?” Fox remarked, as much a question as a statement.

“Varric kicks in a little, sometimes, and I'm pretty sure he's bribed the local gangs to stay clear of my little section of Darktown. Guard Captain Aveline... Its generous enough, by her standards, that she knows where I am but hasn't given the Templars a map. Merrill is just as badly off as we are, if it weren't for Varric and Isabela looking after her. Isabela forgets what I owe her from losing at cards, Fenris lives in squalor, for all he squats in Hightown, Gerry... Hawke could maybe afford to kick a little more of what he loots my way..” Anders admitted. “But asking involves explaining how badly off this place is, begging him to help. He doesn’t come any further down than the Hanged Man without a reason any more, not since he got the manor.”  He emptied the last of his bowl, and picked up the pot, splitting the last of the stew between them before she could comment. 

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He lay awake for a time, all too aware of the other healer sleeping in the curtained off cot just outside his office. She had sat with him reading after dinner. Sideways on the bench with her bare feet up, using his side as a backrest, long hair in a braid inches from his fingers. When he closed his eyes, he could still feel the warmth where she had leaned against him, smell the faint lavender and lyrium of her hair. 

Fox had come so far from the cowering shadow he had carried out of a pile of deservedly murdered Templars. Three months of living in the clinic, and it felt like she had always been there. Three months in which he had come no closer to getting that collar off her than that first day of melted files, despite his best efforts and all the tomes he could get his hands on. And after that first day, she hadn't even asked about it, just cheerfully set to taking her share of the clinic work... and eventually running distractions for the mage underground as well. Of all the collared mages in Tevinter, he had ended up with the one who could out cheerful Sigrun on a good day, at least when Fenris wasn't involved. 

Anders sighed at the thought. Losing the perky little dwarf to a far too early “Calling” had hurt even more than having to give up Pounce, just as much as everything else that had turned to shit when the Warden Commander had gotten word of his missing love and vanished on them. They had let Templars in, taken his cat, “forgotten” to keep Sigrun busy enough to stay, reassigned Nathaniel somewhere, and left him with no one but Justice and the drunk. Before trying to kill him when he let Justice join him, as much good as that had done them.

Despite the hassle his replacement had caused, Anders didn't really begrudge the scruffy, sarcastic battle mage his quest to find the apostate love of his life. He had heard enough about Morrigan this, and Morrigan that over the time at Vigil keep, had watched him fidget with that enchanted ring endlessly. The moment he thought things were arranged to keep the wardens safe in his absence, he had started looking for her. The blond had to admit, though, that a live Templar would never have been tolerated anywhere near the keep while Mikel Amell had been commander, no matter what smart mouthed excuses he would have had to come up with. 

For a moment, his mind provided an image of life back at the keep as it might have been. Fox cheerfully mouthing off at the commander, grinning at Sigrun as they teased Nate and Oghren, finding new ways to send Velanna into a hissy fit, lecturing new recruits as she patched them up. Smiling at him cross legged on his bed, Ser Pounce-a-lot on her lap, handing him a brush to get the ends of her hair, wearing only one of his blue warden tunics, half laced... He shook his head, trying to focus on something else. He would have broken her heart back then, even with the best of intentions. 

His fingers itched at the idea of burying his fingers into her long silvery hair, tracing the lyrium brands down her neck. He could brush his thumb over her lower lip, right where she always bit at it when she was nervous or unsure, cup his fingers under her jaw to tilt her face up to his, and those aquamarine eyes would focus on him…

Anders rolled over, pressing his face into his pillow as he tried to straighten out his thoughts, fidgeting with the leashkey. While he had this kind of control over her, acting on this infatuation or obsession would be no better than a Templar coaxing a mage into their bed with the offer of better treatment. He'd be no better than the Magister that collared her, worse because she clearly did trust him, regard him as a friend. Breaking that trust, pressuring her into something she couldn't easily say no to while he held her leash...her not saying no only because he was better to her than the Templars of the Tevinters, because he wouldn't hurt her chasing his own pleasure, all of that added up to something he wouldn't want even without Justice stopping him.

A soft weight landed between his shoulder blades, a cold nose brushing against the back of his neck. Warm fur tickled his ears as a gentle steady purr lulled him finally into sleep.


	5. Justice

“You aren't the same as you were,” a softly melodic voice whispered, “but you might make a real difference.”

Justice raised glowing blue eyes, finding himself in the Fade, Hope smiling brightly at him. A cheerfully grinning Firefox sat on a column of Fade stuff rapidly shaping itself into a cushioned chair. “Neither is she,” he answered quietly. “I will say, this new version of her is far less...”

“Blind to everything outside her domain? Convinced of the rightness of her place at the top of things? Aggravatingly self-centered?” Hope offered, just as quietly, watching the Somniari shape a table and chairs out of the raw Fade. 

“Yes. How did you convince her to change?” he asked, frowning, trying to untangle the puzzle. “or convince her to become mortal, even temporarily?”

“The Dread Wolf's prison held her and the others for as long as they were themselves. She put away everything she was to return,locked most of her power away until the binding she set in place wears off.” Hope's gaze flicked over, indicating a cracked mirror framed with spun fire. “As for her change... she was born a Evanuris, raised to power, privileged, and the constant wars of her family, and still remained enough heart to help her people, to do little worse than ignore her siblings excesses in favor of accumulating treasure and admiration. She remained her mother's daughter, with her father's temper.” Hope spread her wings, ruffling the blue glowing feathers. “Raised to a mortal's perspective, forced to see the worst of what unbridled power can unleash, without the elevated position her family provided... She began to reach out on her own, trying to fix she could, before the Magister used the binding collar and the lyrium to control her. She's been much happier since you found her, and she's remembering more.” The bright spirit arched a wing over Justice, smiling gratefully.

“Take away the constant praise and adulation, and she looked for purpose, found a way to actually help people, to fight oppression.” Justice nodded thoughtfully, as the Firefox skipped back over to them.

“I was hoping this would work.” The little dreamer chirped. “Hope said the theory was sound, but I've never actually tried pulling anyone else along when I tranced. I know you can't get back on your own, and I thought... I owe you, for saving me.”

“It is good to be back here, even if only for a little while. It was a kind thought, one I did not look for from you.” He tipped his head, studying her. “You are not what I expected, Firefox.”

“Valor said much the same, the first time I found him here.” She flicked a hand, letting more chairs form under them. “He tried to talk me out of bringing you here. So he's probably off doing something that closely resembles, but is in no way sulking,” Firefox laughed, tossing her braid over her shoulder. “Ow?” she yelped as Hope cuffed her absently with a bright feathered wing.

“Be nice. I would prefer that you remain better than you were as you find your way,” Hope sighed, and Firefox rubbed dramatically at her ear, pouting.

“Do you intend to continue to fight to end the mage oppression, even if you are freed?” Justice asked.

“Of course, as a start,” she shrugged, “There is so much wrong that should be fought, here and back home. And I like not being alone when I fight, so I'll probably still stay here with you. I'd like to still be here when you and Anders finish merging.”


	6. Wicked Grace

“Blondie!” Varric called, waving the mage over to the usual table. “I didn't think you were going to make it in. Your Snapdragon watching the clinic?”  
“No, she just had to run a couple errands on the way here. And I want it said that I am still not certain about introducing her to some of our circle,” Anders sighed, wedging his staff behind his chair. “Please tell me not everyone plans to show up tonight.”  
“Well, I'm pretty sure Choir Boy won't turn up. But really, you left a pint size elven mage wandering the low end of Kirkwall at night by herself?”Varric whistled. “Don't bring up Daisy. I spend entirely too much trying to keep her life uneventful.”  
“Fox has a little more in the way of protective coloration than Merrill, Varric.” The thin blond mage fidgeted with the gemmed bracelet on his wrist. “And I won't be the one to tell her where she can or can't go," he added, just as the door opened.  
“I really should have brought the ball of twine Varric gave me. I keep getting lost without it,” Merrill was fretting, following the shorter elf through the door. “I'm glad you knew the way at least.”  
Fox checked the heft of a bladed staff, smiling in amusement. “Luckily, the Hanged Man was pretty much within sight of where I found you on the docks.” She paced a cautious path through the crowded tavern, her smile brightening when she saw a familiar coat, the dark blond hair tied back above it. “Anders! Sorry it took me a little longer to get here. We ran into a moment of excitement on the docks.” She slid into the chair next to his, tucking the new staff under the table.   
Anders restrained the urge to run a hand over the arm inches away from him, to brush the telltale flecks of ash from her sleeve and assure himself of her well being. The staff she hadn't had when she left the clinic was the same style most of the slaver mages carried, there was a slight bruise along her jaw, and there was drying blood along the edge of Merrill's sleeve, although the skin under it was clearly fresh healed. A moment of excitement with one of the few things in Kirkwall as dangerous than the Templars, clearly, and judging by the look on Varric's face it was just as obvious to him. The girls were here, they were fine, and he could count on Fox at least to have covered their tracks. He thought he'd try to talk Fox into walking back with him tonight, though. “You aren’t that late. We’re still waiting on a pirate, and she lives here.” He reassured her, and she smiled brightly up at him. “This is Varric, if you remember from the last time he wandered by the clinic, and the direction challenged bloo…” Varric shot him a warning look across the table, and Anders sighed. “sweet harmless girl you rescued is the Merrill I’ve mentioned.”  
“I did introduce myself, Anders. Between you and half the elves that have been to the clinic in the last few months, I’ve heard a lot about Foxfire. She’s not hard to recognize, very distinct looking, like Fenris.” Merrill paused as she pulled out the chair next to the dwarf. “That isn’t rude to say, is it? I didn’t mean it like that if it is. It’s not that you’re like Fenris, Its just that…”  
“We both have the lyrium, which means similar markings and the color bleached out of our hair, as well as both being northern Tevene to begin with. Which makes us both rather striking and easy to spot. I understand what you meant, Merrill, its fine. It is nice to finally meet you.” Fox smiled, and Merrill quieted, reassured. “Varric, I have to ask. Are you the Varric Tethras, the writer? Because someone tried to trade in a copy of the ‘Dasher’s Men’ as payment the other month, and I think I might be a fan.”  
“The one and only, Snapdragon. If you liked that one I’ll get you a copy of ‘Viper’s Nest’,” the dwarf chuckled. “Thanks for finding our Daisy out there, since she apparently needs more twine.”  
“Our Merrill kitten got lost again?” an almost Antivan accented voice asked from the hallway, then nearly squealed. “Oh… She’s adorable. She really does look like a tiny, cuter Fenris!” Dark skinned arms hauled Fox out of her chair, pulling her into expansive, barely corseted cleavage. “Anders, is this the Fox you’ve been hiding from us? She’s so tiny, like a little big eared fennec.”  
“Some people believe in personal space, Rivaini.” Varric pointed out, trying to hide a smirk at Fox’s still startled and Ander’s flustered expression. Isabela scowled slightly at him, and he shrugged. “If you try to steal Blondie’s girlfriend, he’ll never bring her back here. The Guard Captain still doesn’t want you anywhere near Donnic.”  
“Fox isn’t… I wouldn’t…Fox is a friend. She’s helping out at the Clinic while I figure out how to break the enchantment on her collar, and that’s all.” Anders explained, fingers almost white knuckled over the leashkey he had been toying with.  
Fox coughed a little, and Isabela set her down without removing her arms from her slim shoulders.“I’ll keep her if you won’t. Who doesn’t want an adorable pocket sized healer?” The Rivaini pirate queen dropped into the chair Fox had been using, and patted her lap hopefully. “Sit with me, I’ll teach you how to play, make sure you can see the table properly.”   
Fox shifted her feet, nibbling at her lip as she glanced between Anders looking anywhere but at her and the optimistically leering pirate. “Why not?” she finally sighed, letting Isabela pull her up onto her lap, holding her there with a casual arm around her waist as Merrill giggled.

“Anders, you haven't shown up in a month. I was starting to worry the Templars had found you after all.” Gerard Hawke, Gerry, to his nearest and dearest, dropped into a chair, propping his elbows on the table as Varric shuffled his deck.   
“And of course you didn't check, because despite your great affection for me, you are a creature of endless prudence and didn't want to risk exposing yourself to them.” The blond healer remarked dryly, taking the mug of ale he was offered.  
“I... That's fair, I suppose.” Gerry sniffed, slumping back in his chair, momentarily chragined.  
At the other side of the table, Fenris sullenly slunk in, taking the chair farthest away from Anders and Hawke, who he was carefully not making eye contact with. Automatically, he ordered his drink and took the cards Varric passed over to him. Cautiously, he started glancing wistfully up from his cards at the dark haired mage when Hawke wasn’t looking, ignoring Merrill’s probably coincidental fit of giggles. Eventually, his gaze wandered to the side of the table directly across from Gerry, and the wine he spat almost covered his cards. “What? Why…” he spluttered, staring at the smaller elf comfortably ensconced in Isabela’s lap.  
“Rivaini is teaching Blondie’s little Snapdragon how to play Wicked Grace. Although her teaching technique seems heavily based on smothering the poor girl with endless cleavage.” Varric tossed a rag over at the armored elf, already ordering him another drink. “I told you I’d suggested inviting her.”  
“It’s very educational.” Fox commented, studying her cards. “I’ll probably have the hang of the game by the end of the night, not that I’ll necessarily turn down further lessons.” She smiled across the table at the scuffy ice mage. “You would be Hawke then? I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Foxfire.”  
“Mostly good, I hope. I admit, your name has come up a couple time over the last few months.” Gerry leaned back, ordering his usual from a passing barmaid.  
“From Anders or the pu... Fenris? Because anything he told you I can probably explain.” She cheerily smirked over at the other elf’s scowl.   
“Let’s go with Anders, for today,” Gerry sighed, glancing over at Fenris as he rubbed at his neck. “As long as you and Fenris can stay civil for card night, I’ll reserve judgement. To be honest, I thought Anders wasn’t bringing you until he got that collar off you.”  
“I’ve melted endless amounts of files, I’ve tried every enchantment trick I learned in the tower. I can’t figure out any way to meddle with the rune sets without triggering them on her. As best I can tell, it’s intended to be irremovable while the subject is alive. Some of my contacts think they might be able to smuggle me some books that might provide a new line of research, but..” Anders sighed, flicking a quick glance over at Fox before staring back at his cards. She seemed entirely too comfortable on Isabela’s lap, pillowed against the pirate’s corseted cleavage. Not that he had any right to comment. If the Tevinter healer wanted to make friends with someone who didn’t hold the leash to her collar, all the better. Spending more time out of the clinic could only do her good. Isabela, despite her flighty temper and constant lechery, wouldn’t push Fox into something she wasn’t ready for. He rubbed at the leashkey again, fighting down the jealous knot that rose in his belly.  
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked Sandal yet. He’s brilliant with enchantments.” Hawke said with a shrug, passing a hand of cards over to his mabari. “Maybe it would give the kid something to do other than climbing my chandeliers,” Gerry continued blithely, not looking up as Anders dropped his head into his hand with a groan.  
“I forgot about Sandal. Is he still staying at your manor with Bodahn?” the blond healer asked, ruefully.  
“Last time I checked.” Hawke chuckled. “Should I tell them to expect a visit? Any reasonable time works, as long as you’re willing to stay long enough to have tea with my mother. She adores you, for some reason.”  
“Leandra is an interesting woman. I respect any woman willing to give up everything to run off with an apostate and raise his mage gifted children away from the circle.” Anders checked the small pile of coins he had brought, and ordered another cheap beer. “And her cousin Revka was my Commander’s mother, so we have stories to swap.”  
“The famous Archdemon slaying Amell,” Gerry muttered. “Because my mother doesn’t already hold me to a high enough standard.”  
“If you’d prefer I avoid her…” Anders quietly started, only to be waved off.  
“No, it gives her hope for my brother in the wardens. Maybe if you talked her into taking up fundraising for that little clinic thing of yours, give her a project, it would distract her from my life.” Hawke suggested dismissively. “Raise,” he announced, shoving coins forward with another glance at his cards.


	7. Weapon training

Fox skipped ahead of Anders on the way home from the tavern, clearly a little buzzed from the assortment of drinks Isabela had passed her during the game. “I like some of your friends.” She remarked, humming a little. “I’m still not sure about Hawke, but the pirate and the dwarf are nice. And Merrill doesn’t seem quite as dangerous as you’ve described.”

“I’m not sure Hawke’s any more certain about you, sweetheart.” Anders chuckled, watching the tiny elf bounce barefoot from flagstone to flagstone, her somewhat oversized new staff strapped to her back. “Isabela does seem to be a fan of yours, though,” he added, unable to keep a note of jealousy from his tone.

She slowed, letting him catch up while she studied his face. “I… She might be a bit much, but she’s fun. Especially when she decided to cheat in my favor in the name of teaching me the game.” She nibbled at her lip, walking a bit slower.

“Planning on taking her up on more lessons?” he asked, checking the alleyway ahead of them. “Varric usually has a game running every week, if you want to go back.“

“It was entertaining, even if I had to sit at a table with a sulky puppy. Nice to get away from the clinic for a couple hours. Maybe you could teach me how to play for a few lessons when we have time,” she suggested, determinedly settling back into the bouncier gait.

Anders snorted, holding out his mostly empty coin purse pointedly. “Little fox, I am the last person you want to learn that game from. I’ve lost to the dog on occasion. I shouldn’t play at all, but…”

She restrained a sigh. “The amount of effort we put into the clinic, you deserve something relaxing, to spend time with your friends. I do appreciate the invitation. Worst case scenario, I go lure and loot more templars for supply money. Win -Win.” He laughed at that, and she snagged his purse, emptying her pocket into it before handing it back.

“You’re welcome to keep your winnings, ill gotten as they may be, Fox. Go buy a new ribbon for your hair or something before that one falls apart.” He tried to hand the pouch back, only to watch her dance back just out of reach. 

“No, it’s your turn to pick up supplies tomorrow, and there wasn’t nearly enough in there to refill the elfroot. Find me something to tie my hair back with, buy me a pastry, and we’ll call it even.” She retorted, tossing her braid over her shoulder dramatically.

“If that’s the way you want it, sweetheart. I’ll try to find time to take you to the manor to meet Sandal this week, and we’ll see what the dwarf can manage with the leashkey and your collar. Maybe we’ll get lucky, or at least get a better idea where to start. I’ll get that off you someday.” Anders promised, and she smiled up at him fondly, if less than optimistically.

She dropped her new staff onto a clear patch of stone when they got back to the clinic, settling into a crouch next to it gracefully. With a slight frown, she measured the grip down to the bladed end, and started melting it to a shorter height.

“I’m not certain weapon adjustments that drastic should be done drunk, little fox,” Anders commented.

“Nonsense. It’s a standard issue Asariel bladestave. I’ve meddled with far more complex shit as part of a drinking game…” She absently retorted. “All the enchantment on the grip is based right under the focus. So I just have to shorten it to the right length and reweld the blade back on, and….” She stood, twirling the shorter staff to check the balance. She slid through a series of basic staff patterns with the ease of long practice. “Perfect.”

“I didn’t think Tevinter gave slaves weapons, as a rule. Let alone staff training.”  The blonde healer asked, tone puzzled. 

“They… You’re right, they don’t.” Fox stopped short, staring at her grip on the wrapped metal and the stance her feet had settled into. “But I remember training. I remember leaning on a table in a fancy workshop, surrounded by other laughing teenagers in robes, a pile of bottles at our feet. It doesn’t fit what they told me, but I remember it.”

“We’ll get through this, Fox. We’ll get that collar off you, and we’ll figure this out.” Anders took a step closer to her. She stepped back, setting the staff near the cot she used. 

“You’ve said. Anders…” She started, then sighed. “Nevermind. I’m tired, I drank more than I have in years, I… I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Maybe I’ll be less likely to embarrass both of us then.” She dropped heavily onto her cot, already grabbing for her blanket. 

He stared after her for a moment, an impossible idea floating into his head. “I… might have drunk more than I should as well. Good night, Fox.” He tugged the curtain shut around her cot,  and retreated to his small room.

 

He returned from the market late the next morning, setting his basket down quietly so he could watch Fox. She seemed totally absorbed, carefully healing a small elf girl’s arm. As the child flexed her fingers in awe as she finished, Fox brushed her fingers over the girl’s cheek, and her patient beamed up at her. The Tevinter healer took the badly wilted weed the girl gave her with a grateful smile worthy of a dragon’s hoard, and gently shooed her off after her mother. For a moment, his chest tensed, the thought of her with his child echoing before sense and reality drove it back. Grey Wardens didn’t have children. She had flat out told him that the lyrium branded into her skin made her sterile. And the child of two mages, so likely to be one themselves, would have to be guarded from templars every moment. Leandra had managed it, but not here in Kirkwall. 

Maybe someday, if he and Justice succeeded in freeing the mages, someone like her and someone like him could live their lives, fall in love, have a family, that perfect happily ever after he saw in his dreams. But it wouldn’t be now, or the two of them. He’d set his Fox free, keep his infatuation to himself, and live content with the Justice of it.

“I don’t think even water will save that,” he remarked when the clinic was briefly empty again. 

“It’s the thought that counts, really.” She laughed, setting it down on a shelf. “How was the market?” 

“Crowded. Noisy. As usual.” He started unpacking the basket onto the shelves. “Tomwise had our full order waiting, as well as some new stock.” Fox happily snagged the new jars of herbs out of the basket, rearranging the shelves to fit. He dug a cloth wrapped package out of the bottom of the basket, holding up over her head teasingly for a moment before dropping it into her hands. She unwrapped it with a look, finding a ribbon wrapped brush and a separately wrapped scone. Without a word she lunged around the table, throwing her arms around his neck in a fierce hug. 

Anders pulled her closer, burying his face into her hair for a moment. He should keep her at arms length, not continue to indulge this growing obsession, but… The idea of running the clinic without her hurt, the idea of continuing his part of the mage underground without his enthusiastic shapeshifter running distractions for him was difficult. Even Justice agreed she was helpful, and seemed far more approving of her presence in his life than he had Hawke. But still, she deserved her freedom. She deserved a life out of Darktown, away from the constant threat of the Templars finding them. 

“Fox, how does Friday sound for running over to the Amell manor to talk to Sandal and Bodahn?” he asked, when she pulled back. 

“I’ll check my calendar,” she laughed, tugging his head down just far enough to kiss his stubbled cheek before bouncing back to putting things away. 


	8. Orana and Sandal

Neither Leandra nor Gerard were at home when Anders dropped by with Fox in tow, but Bodahn was happy enough to show them in. The dignified dwarven merchant showed them to a sitting room, and went looking for his adopted son.  Fox settled easily into a chair, looking far more at home in the luxurious surroundings than the blonde healer would expect, than he himself felt. 

The door opened behind him, with a clatter of silverware against a tray, and he heard a startled squeak before Fox lunged off her chair. Between magic and deft hands, she and the timid looking blonde girl managed to steady the tea things back on the tray. The tea itself floated inches from the thick piled rug, slowly swirling back up to fall neatly into the pot without losing a drop. “Avanna, Orana. Are you alright?” The pale haired elven mage asked, holding her edge of the tray without touching the shaking servant or losing hold of the magic setting it back to rights.

“Mistress Hadriana said the Templars killed you! She was upset, because Ser Karras was supposed to return you in a week, and now she’d have to explain to the magister that she’d lost you.” the elven girl babbled, shying back from the mage. 

“Well the Templars came close to killing me.” Fox muttered. “I’ve been alright, Orana. Better than alright. How’s your father, is he here as well?”

“Father… Mistress Hadriana killed him, while she was hunting Fenris, I don’t understand why!” She sniffled, and Fox took the tray the rest of the way from her, handing it over to Anders. The shorter healer carefully offered the other elf her hand, and she took it, seeming too almost collapses into her. 

“ I’m so sorry, it’ll be alright, shh.” Fox patted her back soothingly, and the other elf steadied a little. “How did you end up here? Are they treating you alright?”

“I’m paid, here. And Mistress Leandra and Mister Bodahn are very nice. I don’t see Master Gerard very often during the day. Fenris… Fenris killed Mistress Hadriana. I…” She looked up, seeming to notice Anders holding the tray for the first time. “Oh! He has your… Is he your master now?”

“Only in the loosest possible sense of the word. He’s a friend, Orana, and as good a healer as I am. We were actually here to talk to young Sandal, about the collar.” Fox shrugged. “Did Bodahn ask you to bring us some tea?” Orana nodded, shrinking back a little as Fox rose. “Well I certainly didn’t mean to startle you that badly.  If I had known you were here,I would have asked him to warn you.”

“Its… It’s good to see you aren’t dead. You look happier than I remember,” the servant said almost decisively, moving to take the tray back with a hint of a blush. She briskly poured them the promised tea, as Fox settled back onto her chair.  “Mistress Leandra should be back from her afternoon calls within the hour, if you’d care to wait. Master Gerard is out with friends and not likely to return until late. And it shouldn’t take long for Mister Bodahn to track down his son.” She  handing them their tea, smiling slightly at the fond looks the mages sent each other when they thought the other wasn’t looking. “You look much, much happier. I’m glad for you, Danae, er, Fox. I have other things to finish in the kitchen, will the two of you be alright?”

“We’ll be fine. Thank you very much for the tea, Orana. And I’m sure Fox is glad to know you’re alright and well looked after here.” Anders smiled at the girl as she collected the tray and scurried out of the room. He sipped at his tea, raising an eyebrow at his fellow healer. “Danae?”

“The sale paperwork using that name also described the slave in question as having no discernable magical gifts, as well as being uniformly new in parchment,ink, and penmanship across what was purported to be over a decade and five different estates. Hope and Valor  insist my name is Foxfire, and I believe them.” Fox shrugged. “Also, the Anderfells boy really doesn’t have room to mock my naming preferences.”

Anders winced, looking distant for a moment. “Justice also insists your name is Foxfire, actually. And I agree that paperwork sounds shady, but why would someone…”

“Why is the hardest question, and yet the first to occur to us.” Fox mused, lifting her tea in a mock toast. “I don’t know why. I presume the what and the who would provide a great deal of context towards it, if I ever remember enough. I’m getting more of it back, the more time I spend with you and Justice and working in the clinic. Very little of it fits with what I was told about myself, with anything about the life of most Incaensor.”  She drummed her finger in frustration against the arms of her chair, then continued more quietly. “I have all the training of a full enchanter. I remember staff practice, study parties in libraries, the Grand Examinations. Standing on a stage, looking out at the crowd, trying to find faces I knew would be watching me. Bits and broken pieces, sharp edged and hard to look at. I know I like my strawberries with sugar and cream, but hothouse strawberries have less flavor. I’m pretty sure I prefer velvet to silk. None of that…”

“None of that makes sense for a slave.” Anders finished for her. “I hope we can get more back for you. It seems the more you remember, the more… you don’t seem to change so much as solidify, come out of the shadows. The more I see of you, the more I like you. It’s not a feeling I’m used to.”

 

“The sky is still open to you, almost as much as it used to be. You just need to find your wings again.” the odd looking little dwarf told her, turning the leashkey around in his hand, a pile of tools in his lap. “You’ll have to choose, though, when it falls and all the magic comes back the way it was. You can shelter them under your wings or remain flying over the gathered storm.” Both mages and Bodahn stared at the savant with identically baffled expressions. Sandal didn’t even look up at any of them, gently nudging a couple runes with an odd shaped tool. With a triumphant smile, he dropped his tools back on the table, reaching over to click the bracelet over Fox’s slender wrist. It settled, with a subdued flicker from her collar, and he smiled brightly up at her.  “Enchantment!” he announced smugly, and wandered back to his workbench.

 

Fox was quieter than she might have been during the second tea Leandra insisted on joining them for when she returned. She kept toying with the leashkey around her wrist, feeling the bindings in her collar tremble, barely quiescent. With effort and the half buried reflexes of long practice, she kept up her end of conversation, listening to Hawke’s mother chatter happily on and Anders respond politely when questioned. He sounded ever so slightly distracted as well, bored with the small talk the older woman seemed to delight in, and Fox recognized the hints of a silent second conversation with Justice.

One person, of two minds and voices, or one and a half minds at any rate. She debated for a moment which one she liked better, the fierce spirit she could pull to the Fade with her or the dedicated healer she spent her days with. She didn’t have an answer, and realized it didn’t matter. Justice and Anders were too closely intertwined to properly know where one ended and the other began, you couldn’t have one without the other.  One funny, driven, brilliant man, determined to do his part to fix the wrongs of the world. She smiled brighter over at him, and those blue flecked brown eyes caught hers. He smiled shyly back at her, and the butterflies in her chest fluttered,like they did every time.

And that answered the other question hovering at the back of her mind. He wasn’t wearing the leashkey anymore, had no control over her at all. But the very idea of him still made her heart race, the idea of spending the rest of forever with him, running a clinic and the underground or anything of the sort…. She could do it. She could be happy with it. A tiny part of her might miss the tiny chance of  having strawberries and velvet robes again, but it would be worth it to have him. If she could have Anders, it would be worth giving up chasing her past. It would be almost worth giving up healing, not that he’d ever ask that. The word love fluttered through her mind, and she fought back the sudden blush, hiding her face with the pretense of a sneeze.


	9. Freedom

“That was a very odd little dwarf,” she commented, as they made their way back from Hightown. The human next to her made a noise of agreement, and she stepped closer to him, fidgeting with the bracelet around her wrist. “Anders, I… Thank you for this. The idea of having control over my own life again… Thank you.”

“I promised I would get that collar off you, sweetheart. This is just a good step towards that. At least I won’t have to worry about being thought your Master anymore.” Anders paused a little ahead of her, smiling wryly as he looked back.

“Hopefully not. Perhaps I’m just not used to men keeping promises,” she chuckled ruefully, pushing her hair back out of her face. “Especially not other mages, although it could be said I’ve run up against a list of bad examples.  I’m glad I met you, Anders.”

He winced a bit, looking away. “There was a time I wouldn’t have been the best example myself. Before Justice…” She stepped closer into him, and he swallowed heavily, fighting the thoughts that tumbled through his mind.  “Now that you’re free...I’m certain Merrill would put you up until you can find a place. We had Templars almost on our doorstep yesterday, and the Alienage needs a healer as much as Darktown does.”

“The elves already know to come here, like all the downtrodden and desperate of the city, Anders. And I’m not in any more danger from the Templars than you are. Actually, if the events of the last few months are to be believed, I’m in less danger, since our friendly local mage hunters still haven’t figured out to look for cats when they can’t find the mage.” She stepped back, looking up at him as she bit at her lip. 

“Fox. I couldn’t bear…” Anders started, looking between her and the clinic just ahead. “I need you to be safe. I need..” He cut himself off, hands white knuckled on his staff to keep himself from reaching for her.

“No, I understand, Anders. You don’t have the leashkey anymore, I’m not your problem anymore.  Guests and fish stink after three days, they say, and I’ve been taking up a cot for months. I can look after myself, I don’t need to beg Merrill for house room.” She took another step back, not looking at him. “I’ll see you in the tunnels in a few days for the next underground run. I won’t give up on that. Maybe if we aren’t living in each others pockets..” she bit off the last word, brands already flaring as she cat shifted. 

Fox vanished into the shadows of the alley, and Anders stepped into his clinic before slumping against the wall. This is what he had wanted, her going her own way, right? Maybe with her out of his life, he could put his obsession with her into perspective.  

He dished himself up the scraps of the morning porridge, picking at it while trying not to look at her empty cot, her chair at the other side of the table. Somehow, he hadn’t thought it would feel this bad. He had handled the clinic for three years by himself, surely he could just… go back to the way it had been. Scrounging up meals between clients, evading the Templar patrols, waiting for the inevitable visit by Varric or Hawke… Andraste’s knickers, he’d actually have to close the clinic again when they dragged him out, instead of Fox covering it until he got back.  He restrained the urge to toss something at the wall, and decided to go to bed early. 

Sleep didn’t come as easily as he had hoped. He hadn’t realized how used to knowing where she was, sensing the edge of her emotions and wellbeing. She could be anywhere out there, hurt or captured or dead. Fox was probably fine, but he didn’t know that anymore.  It took a little longer of lying awake before he realized what else he was missing. Fox hadn’t spent every night in his bed as a soothingly purring cat, but he always slept easier when she did. Justice rumbled into the back of his mind, pointing out that the nights she joined him were the nights she pulled him with her to visit the Fade and Hope. 

Marvelous. He had alienated the girl of his dreams, the only other person willing to watch the clinic when he couldn’t, and the favorite person of the spirit in his mind, all in one ill advised suggestion. Even Justice wasn’t as thrilled with this turn of events as he had hoped. She had promised to still be there to run the planned distraction for the underground in a few days. Maybe he could find a way to fix this then.

 

Fox skulked across the docks, debating whether to indulge her catshape’s instincts and chase another of the rats skittering in the shadows.It was soothing, certainly, but so messy when she caught them.  She stepped away from the the last, delicately cleaning her claws on the wood of a market stand. Easy enough to charm a bit of fish out of a closing shop, a bowl of cream out of Hightown kitchen help. A flicker of memory, hiding from lessons as a tiny kitten in a large kitchen, as a well dressed older mage called her name… but it wasn’t exactly… She shook it off, letting instinct drive her until her mind cleared. 

She missed the clinic already. Five months, and that set of rough stone walls was more home than anything she could think of. She missed Anders, his laugh, his footsteps. The warmth of his side against her back while she read with him on the bench.  But if he didn’t feel the same way she did, if he didn’t want her there… The very idea hurt, even through the simpler emotions of her cat shape. Fox scrambled to the top of a scaffolding, surveying the streets regally as she tried to sort her thoughts. 

The docks below were as chaotic as ever, even at this late hour of night. Brigands, drunk sailors, what looked like close kin to the opportunistic slaver of last week. And a cheerfully skipping Merrill. This boded so well.  Fox carefully climbed lower, keeping a eye on the oblivious Dalish mage, who clearly hadn’t learned the lesson from the last time. As expected, one of the brigands began following the short haired brunette as she headed down an alley. 

Fox leapt to the roof of the adjoining building, gathering herself as she waited. The rough dressed human approached Merrill, looming, as two others blocked off the other end of the alley. The moment he raised his sap was the moment Fox dropped, shifting back the instant before she hit his shoulders. The other mage, suddenly alerted to the situation, clipped one of the others with her staff. The last brigand reached for the short sword at his belt, only to drop gurgling, a long curved dagger through his neck. 

Isabela strolled around the body, giving the two elves a looking over before settling into her usual careless posture. “Well, that was exciting. Kitten, I know Varric has asked you not to take the alleys by yourself this time of night.”

“But nothing ever happens...except for now, but…” Merrill protested, glancing back at Fox, still sitting on the unconscious brigand.

“Kitten… Let’s go back to the tavern. I promised to teach you how to do body shots, remember?” the pirate sighed. “Foxkit, are you in as well?”

“Oh, why not. I’m surprised… She has no idea what you’re talking about, does she?” Fox asked, looking between Merrill and Isabela. “I would really like to see this, then,” she laughed.

 

“It wouldn’t work, I think.” Fox said quietly, several hours and a number of drinks later. 

“Not a chance. I’m looking for a bit of a rut and maybe a good ship’s mage.  You’re prone to seasickness and already stupid in love with the warden. I could distract you…” Isabela offered. 

“I think if I’m actually going to bed with someone by choice, I’d like it to mean more than a bit of fun. No offence if that’s what you really want, but I don’t think I’d be as happy with myself in the morning.” Fox mused, pulling the last empty wine bottle out from under Merrill. The Dalish first made a vaguely protesting noise and snuggled further into the blankets. The healer smiled fondly over at her, and tossed the bottle onto the pile in the corner. 

“Foxkit, technically you and Merrill are in my bed at the moment. Or on it , at any rate.” the pirate laughed. She ran a hand fondly over the dark haired elf’s back, and Merrill moved into it sleepily. “I am going to sleep in a pile of pretty girls, even if I get nothing else out of this little party.”

“You are perfectly aware of what I meant, so meh.” Fox stuck her tongue out at Isabela childishly, laughing. “Is it that obvious, about Anders?” She asked, wrapping an arm around her knees. 

“You’re joking, right? You two are even worse than Hawke and Fenris with all the damn puppy eyes at each other. Show up for the next Wicked Grace game. I want to see if I can get him to punch me if I pull you up on my lap again.” Isabela snorted, reaching off her side of the bed for another bottle of wine. “The only thing more obvious than your attachment to him is the way he’s trying to fight being in love with you, and failing horribly.”

“All big, sad puppy eyes,” Merrill agreed drowsily. “Anders has been nicer, too, since he met you, Hal’isa.”

Fox seemed briefly startled, frowning. “Merrill, what did you just call me?” She asked, a tumble of fractured memories surfacing.

“Hal’isa?” the blood mage roused a little. “It’s elvish, it just means…”

“Foxfire. Hal’isa is the elvhen for Foxfire, but..” she shook her head, rubbing at her temples. “Nevermind, Mer. Go back to sleep.” She patted the other elf on the head, rearranging herself around the other two more comfortably. “You’re certain he actually likes me? He’s been pretty adamant about not…” 

“He’s being stupid about it, but he’s gone over you.” Isabela reassured her again. “Put his hand under your shirt or climb into his bed or something. He’ll get the message then. Men just tend to be idiots about this sort of thing.”

“Let’s call that plan b, maybe. I’ll see him tomorrow, maybe we can talk through this. Thank you, Isabela.” Fox sighed, and the pirate wrapped an arm around her shoulders. 

“That being said, I would feel horribly remiss if I didn’t have a talk with you about our grey warden’s little passenger. The last time…” Isabela started, leaning back against the headboard.

“If this is about the Ella incident, Merrill mentioned it on the way to the tavern last week. And Varric pulled me aside to warn me before we left.” Fox pointed out, smirking.  “Beyond that, Justice and I have met in the last few months. I like him, even if he’s slightly less personable than Anders.”


	10. As long as you're mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so oodles of gratitude to the two people who have this story subscibed! thank you so much for reading this.

He paced through the edge of the tunnels, hoping to catch a glimpse of long white hair.  A soft sound made him look up, as a small cat strolled along the edge of some scaffolding.  She shifted back in a soft flare of light, dangling her legs over the edge of the wood as she smiled hesitantly down at him. “There you are. I was getting worried,” Anders sighed with relief.

“Worried enough you’re wandering around the rendezvous point three hours early, apparently,” she remarked. “Unless someone shifted the plans in the last few days.” 

“No plan change, I just…I would drown the city in blood to keep you safe. I knew you could handle yourself, but I still kept thinking of what might happen to you. I missed you.” He reached up to help her down, and she let him catch her as she dropped. Without either of them thinking about it, she threw her arms around his neck, and his wrapped around her waist, pulling her close. He could feel her soft hair under his stubbled cheek, ever so faintly lyrium scented, the warm weight of her in his arms. “ You deserve better than me. I can’t offer you anything but…  I shouldn’t ask this of you... What can I say to talk you into coming home after the run?” He asked, slowly, trying to find the right words.

“On what terms? Anders, I care for you, probably far more than I should. I want…” She tried to pull back a little, clear her head and heart of the flutters being this close provided. 

The blond healer blinked at her, then tugged her back into him, moving his hands up to cradle her face. He kissed her with the fervor of a drowning man seeking air, and she pressed back into him, tangling her hands into his hair to pull him closer. “I shouldn’t ask this of you,” he repeated, resting his forehead against hers when the came up for air. “If I continue on this path they’ll hunt me forever, but… the idea of continuing without you at my side hurts.”

“Oh, Amatus. There is no one I would rather be a fugitive with. I would set the world on fire to stay by your side.” She fisted her hands in the feathered shoulders of his coat, and tipped her face back up to him expectantly. 

Anders eagerly obliged her with another kiss, tracing the brands of her neck tenderly. “Sweetheart, I have never felt like this about anyone. Not even.. If we’re serious about this..”

“If I were anymore serious about this, about you, I would have crawled naked into your bed by now.” Fox snorted, and got herself kissed again. This kiss ran even longer, until they pulled slightly apart, gasping for air.  He ran his hand down her back, sliding it back up under the edge of her tunic, tracing the tangle of sleek metallic runes, colder than the surrounding skin. The next time they came up for air, her tunic was half off, his coat on the ground around his calves, and he pulled back. 

“Wait. Not here,” he whispered, pulling back a little. “A quick tumble against a filthy wall worked for Tower trysts, but… this is more than that. I want more than that for us, even to start.”

She blinked at him for a moment, as if processing what he had said and where they were. “When we get back, then. With an actual bed, of sorts, and not in a smuggler’s tunnel where anyone could walk by.” Despite their agreement, each could hear the other whine a little under their breath as they separated, straightening clothing, and leaned in for another kiss. 

 

They stayed where they were a bit longer, wrapped in each other’s arms in the shadows of the tunnel. “You are coming back to the clinic after the run, right?” Anders asked, his tone still worried. 

“I’ll come home, Amatus. If I have to crawl, I will come home to you.” She flicked a tiny spell over his coat, small stains fading and short tears reweaving themselves back, and straightened it over his shoulders. “Promise me you’ll be there when I do?” she asked, with the same edge of uncertainty his voice had held.

“I’ll have a pot of tea waiting,” he promised, kissing the top of her head. “Maybe we’ll be able to negotiate the crawling naked into my bed option?”

 

Even with her promise echoing in his ears, he found himself pacing again, watching the tea steam on the table. What if she somehow thought better of it, of him? What if the Templars had caught her, made her Tranquil like they had Karl? Justice rumbled warningly at the back of his mind, but the train of thought continued. Losing Karl had almost driven them mad, the very idea of losing Fox the same way… Can’t let himself keep thinking about that, not her. He might have stayed in the Tower for her once, as he had for the older boy, but… Anders couldn’t actually imagine Fox staying in the Tower long herself. Especially not with her shapeshifting gifts. He imagined her dodging under the feet of a clueless Templar, and smiled a little. 

“I can’t help but notice this place didn’t stay clean for even three days without me,” a teasing voice came from the door, as Fox strolled in, dropping a small bag on the table nearest the door.

“More Templar ‘donations’ to the clinic budget?” Anders asked, relaxing as he chased the worst of his worries back out of his mind. 

“A cave-in down some of the smaller tunnels under the Gallows. Very tragic. I’m sure the Lyrium smugglers will miss their business.” She stepped towards him, suddenly hesitant as she rubbed at her arms. “Anders, amatus, I owe you a great deal for the last few months, and I don’t want to think I’m pushing you into anything you don’t actually want. If you want us to just go back to where we were before we got the leashkey fixed, with me just helping run the clinic…” She gestured over to the curtained cot that still had what few possessions she’d accumulated piled under it. 

“Oh, sweetheart.” Anders sighed, closing the distance to pull her back into his arms. “I want this. I want you,” he reiterated, tipping her face up to his with a finger under her jaw and kissing her soundly. “I’ve been fighting wanting you for almost as long as you have been here, because I didn’t want to push you into anything,” he admitted,running a slender finger over the leashkey on her wrist. “You… As long as this isn’t because you think you owe me…” 

“Maybe Isabela’s right. We are both stupid with this, over each other,” Fox remarked, pulling his face down into another kiss. 

 

Long slender fingers slowly unlaced her tunic, trembling a little. She was right in front of him, her small hands untying the leather strap holding back his straw blond hair. Still, part of him doubted. That someone like her chose him, despite everything, that she was there in his arms wanting him… It had to be a dream. 

As if sensing his fear, she smiled warmly at him, pulling him down for yet another kiss. It wasn’t as desperate as the way they had kissed in the tunnels, sweeter, softer. But by the time he thought to breathe, he had worked her top the rest of the way off, tossed his coat over a nearby cot. 

Fox was beautiful, the silver white lyrium brands spiraling in delicate glyphs over olive dark skin.  He reached out to trace the elaborate tangle just under her shoulder, careful to keep the aura of his magic from sparking against the runes. She tensed for a moment as the pads of his fingers brushed the lyrium, forcing herself to relax when the half expected manclash didn’t happen.

Anders’ fingers stilled against her, alert to the edge of discomfort she couldn’t quite hide. “Fox, are you still alright?”

“I.. I’ll be fine. Just give me a moment to remind myself that you’re you,” she whispered, and he pressed his lips to her forehead, light kisses that slowly worked from her temple to her cheek. Fox latched her fingers into the open edges of his coat, trying to focus on him through the flickered memories of hands holding her down while the manaclash raged, keeping her in enough pain to keep her from blocking them out. Anders wasn’t hurting her with his hands over the brands, and he wasn’t going to, she knew that. 

“Shhh, then. I’ll be right here,” he soothed, pulling back a bit to drop into one of the battered clinic chairs. She followed a moment later, crawling into his lap and sliding her hand hesitantly back up into his hair, nibbling slowly at his stubbled jaw. He carefully ran his hands back over her shoulders and down her back, letting his fingers knead between the runes as the traces of tension faded. “Better?” he asked, still not making any attempt to move further.

“Much. I don’t know… I’m sorry I…” he interrupted her with another kiss, swallowing further apologies. When they pulled apart again, he smiled affectionately at her.

“Don’t be, there’s nothing wrong. There is no hurry to this, little fox. I’ve never had that before, only hidden trysts before the templars missed us or a fast tumble during one of my escapes.” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind one of her ears, trying to think straight. “I have every intention of savoring every moment of what we have, sweetheart. There is an exquisitely beautiful mage in my arms, one who I utterly adore. Neither of us are going anywhere but bed tonight. How much we’re wearing and what happens there is still up for negotiations.”

“Even if I say I don’t think I can do this right now? Where’s the starting goal of that negotiation?” Fox asked, tucking her face against his bony collar bone as she curled against him.

“Sweetheart, as long as you’re still in my life tomorrow morning… I can go reacquaint myself with very cold water, we can finish our tea, read for a bit. We’ll figure out whether you’re okay with sleeping in my bed tonight or you’d feel safer on a cot.” Anders couldn’t entirely restrain his sigh as he shifted under her, kissing her temple again when he found an almost comfortable position. 

Fox relaxed further into his embrace for a moment, nuzzling into his neck. Then she braced herself with her knees to either side of his thighs, forearms resting on his shoulders as she stared earnestly into his face. There were more blue flecks in his eyes than there had been even a few days earlier, she noticed. “Counter point. Cold water option is postponed, we stay right here while we finish that tea, and see where we are after more kissing.”

“I think I can work with that, little fox.” He leaned back, tangling his fingers in the ends of her hair. The old chair creaked alarmingly, and he chuckled. “Maybe not on this chair, though.”


	11. Honesty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3! 3 subscribers for this story now, hooray! thank you!

 

Anders roused slightly in the darkness of his small room, trying to place what was different enough to wake him. The warm weight against his side shifted a little, and he smiled, tracing a hand down Fox’s back. There were far worse things to wake up to, he thought to himself. Tiny fractures of blue light lit over his hand as it passed over the dimly responding runes down her spine, an echo of music resonating from the back of his mind. “As much as I enjoy your tacit approval of this, I can’t help but consider that an ulterior motive,” he whispered, chuckling slightly at the almost indignant lack of response from his other half.

 Fox stirred at the sound of his voice, calling up a small wisp of light as she blinked up at him. “Love you, Anders,” she yawned, propping herself up with her arms crossed over his chest. 

“This is something we never dared in the Tower. Getting caught in someone else’s bed meant enough punishment no one ever risked staying after a tryst. And if you had something, someone you couldn’t bear to lose, it gave the Templars too much power over both of you.” He levered himself up enough to press his lips to her temple, running his thumb over her cheek to the tip of her ear.  “I am going to cherish breaking both those rules with you, little fox.”

“I was half afraid I’d wake to find yesterday a dream,” she murmured, nuzzling into his chest. “I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you, amatus.” The hand idly tracing circles over his lean chest stopped, and she propped herself up higher to look at him. Curious, she spread her fingers over the large scar across the right side of his chest. “Templar work? That had to have been nasty when it was fresh.”

“They meant to kill me. It was right before I left the Wardens, why I left the Wardens,” he explained quietly. She was still watching him, head tilted expectantly. “It’s not the shortest story in the world, or one that I’m necessarily proud of.”

“If you feel like telling it, I’ll like to hear it. Someday, if not now.” Blinking still drowsily at him, she settled her head back onto her hands. “I don’t have as many stories to reciprocate with at the moment, but I promise to be honest with the ones I do, with what I remember.”

“I’ve mentioned I didn’t really volunteer to join the Grey Wardens?” he started, and Fox nodded. “I’d been caught after my umpteenth escape, one of the more promising ones, at that, and the Templars that caught me decided they had had enough. That it was time to make an example of me, before someone else dared to dream of freedom. The fact the first set that caught me met an untimely end to darkspawn and indifferently friendly mage fire probably didn’t help matters.”

“Tranquil or execution? Or were they still debating that detail?” the elven healer asked, one foot idly rubbing at his calf. 

“Still debating, but leaning heavily to execution, thank the Maker. The newly appointed Warden Commander and Hero of Ferelden was, as I know I’ve mentioned, a mage out of the Tower. Younger than me, but we’d crossed paths a few times. Mikel Amell conscripted me out from under Ser Rylock’s most strident protests, probably as much to spite them as to save me. He despised Templars as much as I do. And while he stayed Warden Commander, it wasn’t that bad, being a Grey Warden.” The lean blond human reached down, catching a strand of long silver white hair to tangle in his fingers.  “I was free of the Circle and the Chantry, and I had friends, as much as we all complained about each other. It’s when I met Justice, when he was still separate. He used to spend hours nagging me about my duty to those still oppressed, now that I was free.”

“I’ve heard part of that lecture in the Fade. Fortunately, my helping you help these oppressed people counts as my part, for now. Tevinter can wait for another time.” Those aquamarine eyes peered up at him in thinly veiled amusement. “Your Amell is Lady Leandra’s cousin Revka’s youngest boy, correct?”

“Yep. He’s a little like Hawke, if Hawke was, well, competent. And viciously snarky. And probably straight.” Fingers still tangled in her hair, he tugged her down for a kiss. “At any rate, Amell met this apostate witchy girl during the blight, but she ran off right after the archdemon fell, probably carrying his child. He was always a little preoccupied about that, not that I wouldn’t be.  He heard something about where she might be, handed over the reins to a transferred older Warden who promised to keep everything just the way he left it, and vanished into the mid afternoon.” 

“I’m guessing that life didn’t stay the same long.”  Fox leaned down, catching his lips for another kiss. 

“Nope. They reassigned my closest friend, Nate. Broodier than, what do you always call him, the puppy? But a good guy, and I don’t even know where he ended up. Another friend, Sigrun, essentially killed herself.  It was down to me, Justice, and this asshole drunk, and then they started recruiting Templars. Who, despite what anyone might say, stayed more Templar than Warden. When the body Justice had been using started to give out…”  Fox shifted up, leaning her forehead against his, and he slid a hand over the nape of her neck as he tried to steady his breathing. “We’d been talking about the idea for a while. I didn’t pay attention to who was watching when he made the leap into me, and it was a little more noticeable than I was expecting. The Templar reacted like a Templar, sword first. I still remember what it felt like when the blade went between my ribs, into my heart.” 

Fox’s hand went back to the scar over his heart, and he covered hers with his own. “Justice saved you? Because you were still mid merge?”

“Something like that. We fought back, but we still blacked out for a while. They left us for dead near an entrance to the deep roads. I don’t know what they told everyone else when they got back to the keep, but.. I woke up, barely managed to evade the darkspawn, and left. I ended up in with the refugees, and we came here.”  He went back to slowly tracing the runes down her back, the fractures of blue flickering up his arm as the runes lit dimly under his touch. “I took out a couple of them before I blacked out, I think. We lost control, almost as badly as when…”

“I’ve been informed about the Ella incident. Every time one of your friends got me alone, they seemed to feel it necessary to warn me about how ‘dangerous’ Justice is.” Fox arched into the Fade energy running along the runes. “You have about a century to stop doing that, by the way.  Take longer if you feel it’s needed.” 

“What with the time in the Fade, I think you’ve spent more time with me as Justice than anyone else in the group,” Anders mused, obligingly adding his other hand to reachable rune brands. “And you aren’t afraid at all, even though you’ve been told what we’re capable of?”

“Considering what I’ve been discovering I’m capable of, not at all. I like most of them, but your friends don’t exactly seem to have the moral high ground where killing people is concerned. Well, maybe Merrill.” Fox trailed light kisses over his collarbone, nuzzling into his neck.

“They don’t seem to see it that way, sweetheart. I’m a dangerous apostate, next thing to an abomination,” the blond sighed, resting his hands on her shoulder blades. 

“Don’t start. Fenris has no right to any moral high ground, as far as I’m concerned.  I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on changing his life, but I know perfectly well what he’s capable of. Killing innocents was the least of what he did when ordered.” Fox half snarled, pulling out of Anders’ loose grip as she sat up. “Sorry. You’re the last person I should take that pile of irritation out on. He seems to have turned himself around, and it was always more Danarius’s fault than his. I can manage bare civility as long as he can.”

“What exactly did he do? You’ve implied a deeply personal level of rivalry, but..” Anders sat up next to her, draping his arm around her slim shoulders. 

She leaned back into him, taking a resigned breath. “Honest stories both ways, as promised. But you aren’t allowed to kill him for anything that happened back in Tevinter, before he got free. When he loses the benefit of the doubt I’m giving him, let it be for something he pulls here and now, alright?” Fox snuggled closer into the thin human’s lap, resting her head against his chest. 

“The fact you’re starting with that sentiment is very worrisome, little fox.” he rumbled, strong traces of Justice in his voice. 

The brands on her fingers lit, as she traced the flickering blue fractures over his chest soothingly, looking anywhere but her lover’s face. “I mentioned I was purchased, however illegitimately, as part of a breeding program? Danarius had a male slave in mind to play the stud to my broodmare, and he was ever obedient to his master’s wishes. Even after he realized his lyrium experiments had made us sterile, it frequently amused Danarius to reward him with me. Or anyone else who was in the Magister’s favor, to be honest.And there were times being used as … it got me out of my kennel for a little while at least.” She slumped a bit further into his arms, as Anders traced slow, reassuring circles over her back.  “The Fade magic doesn’t hurt. It’s like being under Hope’s wings, but with more humming. Other magic, or Fenris’s brands...it clashes, and the more contact the worse it is.”

“We won’t kill him now, Firefox, as you request.” They reply came slowly in that doubled voice. “But if he keeps speaking ill of you, if he moves against you again…”

“That’s fine. The line between Justice and Vengeance is thin enough, I don’t want you crossing it for something long since over.” she whispered.

“But it still hurts you, every time he speaks to you, when he reminds you...” His voice softened, some of the blue fractures dimming. 

“Yes, but I can name far more culpable targets.” She told him, voice a little stronger. “Don’t tarnish that line over him, when there are far worse to begin with. Now if you gave me Ser Karras...”

“If you remember your birthday, I’ll keep his name in mind.” Anders chuckled, tapping her nose as she laughed. Another kiss, and he tugged her back down into the blankets with him. “There is a  benefit to having been shanghaied into joining the Taint brigade, Sweetheart,” he teased, running his hands down her front. 

“The endless rumors about Warden stamina?” she asked archly, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Prove it to me, Amatus.”


	12. All that remains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay to the new subscriber!

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” the thin mage groaned, leaning against the doorframe in half laced leggings, staring at the scruffily bearded brunette standing outside. “Hawke, what do you need now?”

“Anders, I know its late, but someone sent my mother white lilies yesterday, and now she’s missing,” Hawke pleaded,already moving to block any attempt to shut the door. “I’m afraid it’s that killer Aveline was chasing.”

“You think the Butcher grabbed Leandra?,” Anders sighed, raking his mussed blond hair back out of his face. He liked Leandra, respected her willingness to protect her apostate family from the Templars.  He mostly respected her eldest as well, despite the ever increasing list of thing they disagreed on. Mikel Amell could and probably would kick Gerry’s ass if they ever met, but Hawke did have his moments. “I’m in then. Give me a moment to get dressed, grab my staff, and let Fox know where I’m going.”  He caught a flash of movement in the shadows behind the other apostate, and paused. “ You and Isabela are welcome to wait in the clinic. Your broody shadow still isn’t.”

“You two are really going to have to get over that at some point.” Gerard muttered, but smiled apologetically at his favorite elf regardless. “Fen, do you mind terribly?” he asked, even as Isabela followed Anders in. 

“Shockingly, I have no desire to spend any time in the abode of a mage I detest. The fact that the news of the  _ Incaensor _ ’s departure was apparently exaggerated adds to that.” the lanky elf snorted, leaning back up against a tunnel wall.

 

Ignoring the discussion beginning behind his back, Anders slipped into his room, where a just as barely dressed Fox was already holding out his shirt and coat. “Where does he have you gallivanting off now,amatus?” she asked, resigned.

“Leandra went missing, with white lilies left behind.” Anders told the tiny elf quietly, dressing quickly. 

“The butcher of Lowtown? I thought they… Oh, Anders. Just be careful, okay?” She straightened his coat with trembling hands, and he cradled her face in long fingers before kissing her reassuringly.  

“I always am, little fox. Don’t let anyone into the clinic you don’t know until I get back, please? I have a bad feeling about today, and I worry too much about you without having cause.” She nodded agreeably, and he kissed her again, more firmly, before stepping back out into the clinic.

 

“Fenris had a point out there,” Gerry was commenting. “Varric said our tevinter apostate had moved out, probably into a certain pirate’s room at the tavern?” 

The corseted Rivaini pirate in question shrugged, sitting on a table near the door. “Upon deep consideration, I do have some standards, believe it or not. Elves prone to seasickness and feelings who are already hopelessly pining over people I consider friends don’t pass muster. Note that I haven’t tried stealing your lanky green eyed charmer either.”

“I appreciate the thought, but I think Fenris is done with me.” Gerry grumbled, glancing back at the door. “If the Foxmage is back, why is her cot pushed back with the rest?”

“Hawke, really” Isabela snorted, nodding pointed at the flash of long white hair just visible behind Ander’s back as he stepped out of his room. Hawke coughed as he picked up her meaning, and the pirate grinned broadly at the former warden joining them. “Spill, Anders. Which hint did you pick up on? Did she actually have to crawl naked into your bed? I want details, healer boy.”

“You would.” Anders snorted,grabbing his staff on the way out. “She didn’t crawl into my bed, Isabela. This is Fox, so really… It was more of a bounce.” The pirate made a quietly delighted sound, one that didn’t quite cover the aggravated snort from the shadows just outside the clinic. The blond healer’s amused smile faded, and he regarded the other Tevinter elf coolly. “Choose your next words carefully, Fenris,” he advised, as he slung his staff over his shoulder.

“I said nothing, mage.” The warrior adjusted his sword, drew an expectant breath, and blew it out again, flicking a thoughtful glance at the healer’s bare wrist.

“Well, good. Keep it that way.” Anders muttered, seeming almost disappointed. 

“If the two of you are quite done with the ritual posturing you insist on, maybe we could actually go find my mother?” Hawke snapped, fingers drumming irritably on his staff. Both of them promptly looked over at him, taking an awkward step away from each other as the pirate laughed. 

 

Picking through the books and papers in the necromancer’s sad little lair was depressingly enlightening. The letters about his lost love, who had lost all five children from her first marriage to the Templars. Her reaction to having them taken away had cost her her first marriage, and Quentin had apparently been her only consolation. Until the news came, one by one, of her children’s unfortunate fates. Tranquility, dead to the Harrowing, dead in an escape attempt. The news about her fourth child’s death had apparently come the day after the only child she had had with Quentin was caught by the Templars, and proven too much. Revka had taken her own life, leaving a grieving new husband to crumble into madness, long before the last of her first brood had survived his Harrowing and taken on the blight.

With an icy chill down his spine, Anders recalled how often Leandra had spoken of the close resemblance she and her favorite cousin had shared. He set the letters and notes back onto the pile near the slain necromancer, the evidence of years trying to reclaim lost love. This was the end result of Chantry policy, broken families, shattered lives. A conversation with Mikel about the possibility that the Harrowing served only to cull mage numbers, to frighten some into becoming Chantry useful Tranquil, echoed briefly into his mind, and his grip on his staff tightened. This was why it had to end, why the Chantry could not be allowed to oppress his people any more. Stolen children, essentially murdered over nothing, and the desolation of parents left with nothing...

Gerry let out a choked, half hysterical, sob, still standing over the necromantic abomination wearing his mother’s face. The thin blond stepped to the stockier brunette’s side, biting back every comment that occurred to him. This was not the time to bring up any of that to Hawke. Without a word, he helped the younger mage magefire the remains into ash, as an unsettlingly blank expression settled over Hawke’s face. 

They ended up torching the entire room as they left, demonic remnants, arcane tomes, letters and all.  Anders found himself casting most of the spell as the ice mage leaned heavily between the leather clad elf and the weary pirate. When it was over, Gerry pulled himself away from the others, half stumbling as he slowly picked his way home. 

 

“I don’t think he should be alone right now,” Anders suggested quietly, standing on the front steps to the Manor. Isabela had vanished into the shadows as soon as they had gotten back on the streets, quiet and shaken. He didn’t blame her, after tonight, even if it had left him with a broken Hawke and his least favorite elf. Admittedly, Fenris had been better than usual, focused as they both were on Gerry’s obvious near breakdown. Without any of the broody elf’s usual vitriol, it was easy enough to remember Fox’s insistence that he was less culpable for what she had suffered, that he had changed. “All things considered, I think he’d prefer your presence to mine.”

“After tonight, I doubt even you could blame him for that,” Fenris muttered, staring morosely at the door in front of him. “Not with the proof of where your path of uncontrolled mages leads right before us.”

“This is hardly...If mages were free… I’m not going to argue this with you in the middle of Hightown, especially not tonight of all nights.” The warden caught himself, reining back his temper. “Go look after Gerry, Fenris. He adores you, for whatever reason, and it might help tonight.  I’m going to go home, try to scrub enough of the dead shade gunk out of my hair Fox will let me back in.” Anders glanced down at his muck covered coat in distaste. She’d wouldn’t say anything if he tracked this level of filth back, but she would look at him, and then start cleaning behind him...

“Shouldn’t be too hard. The _ incaensor  _ warming your bed has spread her legs for filthier.” Fenris snorted without thinking, already turning back to the door. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of blue, whirling to find solid blue glowing eyes fixed on him.

“Like you?” Anders asked, in a low, tightly controlled snarl.  Staff forgotten, his hands were fisted at his side, fractures of blue splintering over his knuckles. “When your master would reward you with her?”

“She told you,” the lanky elf paled slightly, voice quiet, uncertain, before he flushed angrily. “Yes. Like me, as little of a reward as being made to fuck someone whose skin made my brands burn ever was. Did she mention that part?”

“You claim that as an excuse, like contact with you didn’t set hers off just as badly?” The flickering fractures slowly spread up his arms as his voice shook. “She told me. After she made me promise not to hurt you for anything Danarius made you do, that it was not something she considered you culpable for. She’s convinced you deserve a second chance, but the way you speak of her, every chance you get?” The mage stepped forward, still shaking with fury.  “I’m less certain of that.”

“Are you going to kill everyone Danarius whored your little fox out to? She wasn’t to his taste, but few of his friends agreed. She was practically a party favor, and she never fought back.” Fenris snapped, backed against the door with the furious, glowing mage just out of arm’s reach.  His breath caught for a moment, and his shut his eyes, looking away. “She never fought me, no matter…”

“Would you have stopped if she had? Would he have let you stop? It doesn’t stop being rape if you stop fighting, when it’s safer not to fight.” Glowing blue eyes still glared at the elf, but there was something else mixed with the rage. Somehow, the vague trace of sympathy made it worse, and Fenris dropped his gaze, just before the mage sighed. “We won’t make Hawke lose Leandra and you in one night. Lay a finger on Fox or throw her past in her face again, we will kill you, and we will tell Hawke why.” Anders took a step back, the blue flicking out like a snuffed candle. 

“Understood, mage,” the former slave muttered, watching the healer stalk off before letting himself into the Manor with trembling hands.


	13. Manifesto

Fox was still asleep when Anders got back to the clinic, and he stood for a bit in the door to their room, watching her. She looked so small and fragile there, curled in on herself in the middle of the bed, one of his spare shirts tucked under her arm. The image of her in the tunnels, centered in a whirl of fire, deadly focus in her eyes, came to him, and he chuckled. If the Templars that died to Darktown ‘natural causes’ were counted, she probably had a higher kill count than he did, at this point. Fierce, clever, beautiful, and somehow, against all logic, gloriously his.

He dropped his still filthy coat over a chair, trying to estimate how close it was to dawn. Time was always hard to track this far into Darktown, but he thought it might still be a couple hours until the first patients came looking for the healers. Shivering, hair still icily damp from his hasty cold water scrub, he climbed into bed. His blankets, and the slight form of his lover in the middle of them, were magically, blessedly, warm, and he burrowed his way in. A sharp intake of breath announced the moment he managed to wake her, and he hesitated, halfway into bed.

“Fenhedis, you’re freezing,” Fox muttered, and tugged him firmly the rest of the way in. With a put upon sigh, she snuggled back into his cold skin, letting him leech off her warmth as they rearranged the blankets. “You’re lucky I love you.” she grumbled, and absently reset the warming spell over them both as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders. He forbore any response, burying his face in her loose hair and curling around her as he warmed up. “Did you find Leandra?” she eventually asked, lacing her fingers with his.

“We did, but not soon enough.” She shifted, tilting her head to look at him. “It was bad, sweetheart. I think we finally took down the Butcher, but... “ the ex warden swallowed hard, and pulled her closer. “You have to be careful out there, little fox. You’re the only thing Justice and I have outside of our purpose, and I… I don’t know what we’d do without you anymore.”

“Something stupid and suicidal, probably. Very like the sort of things I might try if I lost you.” Her tone was almost lighthearted, belying the deathgrip her fingers settled into around his. “Go to sleep, Amatus. Neither of us are going anywhere tonight.”

 

His coat was folded neatly by the door to their room when he woke, all the muck of last night gone without a trace. Someday, he really should get her to teach him the spell she kept using on it and anything fabric, he noted. Fox herself was in the clinic, tidying a pile of used supplies. “You could have woken me to help,” he told her, realizing how long she had let him sleep.

“With the state you came back in this morning, I figured I could manage alone for a bit.” She smiled up at him, affectionately, then leaned against one of the cots. “Do you know if there will be a funeral? I only really met her the once, but I know you were fond of her.”

“It depends on Hawke, I suppose. He was a little … lost last night. I’m not sure whether it would be better for me to check on him or give him space to grieve.” Anders found a covered bowl of pottage waiting for him by the back table, a fading spell keeping it from going entirely cold.

“Talk to Varric, ask him to check, assuming he hasn’t already,” Fox suggested. “Which reminds me, actually.” She pulled a stack of papers off a shelf.  “I found these scattered around the clinic when I was putting it back into order. Are you still working on this?”

“I… yes. Did you read any of it?” Anders asked hesitantly, taking the Manifesto back from her.

“Some of it. I approve of the idea, although the current form makes me want to go see if the dwarf has any red ink I could borrow.” She teased, perched on the edge of the table. “Didn’t they teach grammar in that tower of yours?”

“There might have been a lecture, somewhere between the ones about how magic is a curse and why setting fire to Templars makes Andraste cry.” He scraped the last few bites of his food, and looked thoughtfully at the empty bowl for a moment. “I don’t suppose there’s any…” he started to ask, and Fox snorted, pulling a second spelled bowl out of the cupboard and pushing it over the table at him.

“I’m suddenly very grateful Carastes Circle skipped those in favor of teaching us how to format paragraphs and spell fancy words. And how to set obnoxious people on fire, of course.” She remarked, flipping through the stack of paper again. “But seriously, basic editing issues aside, this is a good start to something, Anders. Maybe...”

“We have to try something. Smuggling out mages here and there is well and good, but… We’re treating symptoms, not the disease. If we want to make a real difference, we need to change people’s minds, the idea that locking away mages just for being mages is the best way.” He began, waving his spoon in excitement.

“Preaching to the choir here, Amatus.” She snagged a quill off a shelf, rereading the manifesto thoughtfully as he ate, making notes in the margins.

“I didn’t actually ask you to edit that, sweetheart,” Anders chuckled, setting his empty bowls in the washbasin. His elven lover glanced up briefly with raised eyebrow, extending the stack of paper back to him without dropping her quill. He shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “I’m not denying that your input here would be valuable, or that my spelling isn’t… idiosyncratic. I just wasn’t going to ask you for help until I finished a bit more of it.”

“You left it in five different piles on the worktables I needed, but that’s fair, Amatus. You can finish this draft to your liking, and I’ll go borrow proper red ink to add my input when you’re ready.” She smiled sweetly at him, neither pulling the extended papers back or setting down the quill slowly dripping ink.

“You might as well finish rewriting the part you started. I’ll just try to keep up with your helpful edits.” Anders sighed, over dramatically. On a whim, he swiped a finger through the fresh dripping black ink, tapping the tip of her nose with it.

Remarkably little editing or writing got done the rest of that day.

  
  


“Do I want to know how the two of you ended up covered in that much ink, Blondie?” Varric asked as he shuffled cards. The healers glanced at each other, the array of fading black splotches over most of their exposed skin, and reddened a bit.

“It was an, um, editing mishap.” Anders offered, wedging both their staves into the usual spot behind his chair, as Fox pulled up the chair next to his. Isabela leaned over the table, propping herself on her elbows as she smiled predatorily at the mages. 

“Oh? Spill. You still owe me details, Anders! How am I supposed to write my friend fiction if none of you ever tell me things?”

Fox grinned back at her, while Anders snorted, then leaned forward conspiratorially. “Oh, I could tell you things, ‘bela. Foxfire is incredible.  Want to know how far that lyrium goes?” Isabela half crawled out of her chair onto the table nodding, and the apostate laughed, “Too bad, I’m not sharing. Keep your delightfully ample cleavage away from my sweet little fox, pirate.”

“Aww. You’re being no fun at all today.” the dark skinned pirate pouted, slumping back in her seat and glancing hopefully over at Fox. “Foxkit, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”  The elven healer smirked at her friend, lacing her ink stained fingers with his. 

“Depends. Are you buying our drinks tonight?” The Tevinter mage asked, as the blond apostate next to her chuckled.. “Because, you know, that whole warden stamina thing they have that rumors about?”  She remarked, baitingly. The Rivaini promptly offered a gold coin up to the barmaid, with three fingers held up in full view of the mages. “The rumor falls far short of the real thing, Isabela.” With the merest flicker of a glance at the door across the room,  Fox leaned into Anders, who hauled her up onto his lap when he followed her look. 

“And you have no intention of sharing him, do you?” Isabela sighed, as Fox smirked again and Anders nuzzled blissfully into her neck. “That is cruel, Foxkit, even for a Tevinter.” 

“Not the word I might have used.” Fenris glowered at the pair for a moment as he settled into a chair at the far end of the table. 

“I expect that sort of thing from the pirate whore, but really, Anders? I thought you had some propriety.” A large red haired woman raised an eyebrow at the mages, dropping into a chair next to Fenris.

“Leave Blondie be, Guard Captain. This is actually easier to take than last time he brought Snapdragon, and they spent the entire time pining over each other. Ostentatiously. They made Broody’s puppy eyes seem subtle.” Varric laughed, and Fenris grumbled from over his wine. 

“There are no puppy eyes!” he insisted, and Aveline elbowed him. As the drinks started to arrive, Anders set Fox back on her own chair, still grinning at each other.

“Snapdragon, this is Aveline, our friendly local Captain of the Guard. Guard Captain, may I introduce Foxfire, who’s been helping Blondie out lately.” The beardless dwarf smirked at the woman’s skeptical expression.

“Just what this little band of miscreants needed, yet another apostate,” the former knight grumbled, eying the pair of staves behind Anders’ chair. “I don’t need this right now. The Qunari are sheltering criminals, people are turning up dead or missing all over Darktown…”

“More people dead in Darktown?” Hawke asked, startled, as Fox and Anders both looked up in concern. “Who? Where?”

“Most of them seem to be natural causes, but the number of Templars getting lost in darktown and not coming back…” Aveline started, looking pleased at their immediate attention. The attention that vanished the moment she said the word Templar. 

“Oh. Templars. I thought you meant people people.”Gerry shrugged, sitting across from Fenris, though he didn’t meet the elf’s gaze.

“ But Hawke,Templars are people,” Merrill protested. “The ones I’ve met aren’t very nice people, but they are people. I’m certain they can’t all be bad.”

“And that, kitten, is why you aren’t supposed to go wandering by yourself, especially at night,” Isabela sighed, already ordering the Dalish girl a drink.

“But Hawke, Anders, and Fox go wandering at night all the time. I don’t see why it’s anywhere near as dangerous as you think it is.” the exiled elf took the seat between the pirate and the dwarf. 

“Daisy, none of them have ever gotten lost within sight of the Hanged Man. It’s a little different for them. Snowflake lives in Hightown. And most of Lowtown already know who Blondie and Snapdragon are, and aren’t going to go after them.” Varric explained, patting Merrill’s shoulder affectionately. “I’ll get you more twine and some new flowers for your garden.”

“I suppose. Oh, I almost forgot. Tara from down the street asked me to tell the Healers that little Kally lost her first tooth the other day.” Merrill remarked, cheerfully. “And that she’s pregnant again.”

Anders looked up again at that, smiling. “This will be her third since she got to Kirkwall. She’s from the Highever Alienage originally. I think.”

“The red head with the four year old who like to climb the Vhenadahl and the two year old who just got over Snow Fever? Who bakes the good nut bread?” Fox asked, shaking her head. “I do not envy her three children under six, not if the new one is anything like the others. I…” She paused, looking confused. “I had something for a moment. Nevermind.”


	14. Champion

Anders tried to nonchalantly back further into the crowd, his immediate concern for any injuries Hawke might have gotten from the Qunari dwindling with every new Templar filing in behind the Knight Commander. Gerry looked exhausted, but he wasn’t dying or in immediate danger, and Meredith was evidently taking his status as hero of the hour into consideration. Her attention might be focused on the newly named Champion at the moment, but she wasn’t the Templar most likely to cause problems for him personally. 

He tucked his staff more unobtrusively behind him, grateful for the height that let him do so easily and that Fox had left hers behind when she had been talked into coming along. He adored her, but inconspicuous without shapeshifting was not possible for her. At least without a staff or robes, in a crowd that already held Fenris, she didn’t look like a mage. Merrill had her staff and her robes, but she was between Varric and Isabela, both capable of talking her way out of any issues.  If they were lucky, the Templars wouldn’t pay that much attention to any of them.

Ducking his head and watching the armored menaces out of the corner of his eye, he sidled his way over to the open shirted dwarf. “I hate to take away from Hawke’s moment of glory, but I think it might be time for some of us to make a quiet exit,” he suggested in a low voice, making one pointed glance over at the Dalish exile. 

“Good idea. Show’s over, Daisy. Let’s get out of Hightown before anyone notices you’re barefoot in the middle of the Palace.” Varric remarked, nudging his favorite elf towards the door. “Rivaini, maybe you should come with, before any of those nobles remember that you’re the one who stole what the large angry people were looking for.”

“Fox isn’t wearing shoes either, Varric,” Merrill half protested as she let the dwarf tug her along. “Shouldn’t we stay long enough to make sure Hawke is alright? He looks very out of sorts.” 

“Snapdragon isn’t going to be staying any longer than we are, Daisy. And I can guarantee you, Snowflake will come out of this just fine, especially with Broody keeping an eye on him.” He glanced back over the crowd, checking on the rest of his friends once more before he left them to their own devices.

 

The Templars right behind their Commander looked back at him as they reached the door, and the blond healer forced himself to stay calm. Cullen had only been at the tower for a year, most of which Anders had spent either in solitary, hiding in the Library, or back out on his last escape. Their paths had crossed less than a handful of times, the last more than four years ago, and it was entirely possible the younger man had forgotten his face by now.  Meredith’s Knight Captain frowned slightly as he tried to place a vaguely familiar face, and returned his attention to the weary Champion before him. 

Anders barely kept himself from heaving a sigh of relief, before he noticed the expression the ginger, heavily mutton chopped Templar next to the Knight Captain was wearing. Somewhere between avarice and cold rage, with a heavy dose of surprise, all focused not on the human apostate in his totally not robes coat, but the small elf at his side.  “Anders, we really need to not be here,” Fox hissed, her tone a bare note below panic as she glanced back. The Knight Lieutenant opened his mouth as if to say something, shutting it again almost thoughtfully as the pair scurried out the door.

“Down the nearest alley, go cat as quiet as possible, and meet up back in Lowtown,” Anders decided, brushing a reassuring hand over her cheek as they headed down the stairs. “I’ll take as misleading a route as possible.” 

 

He didn’t see any Templars following him, but dodged his way through crowds and around alleys long enough to shake the feeling of being watched, and calm the voice in the back of his mind. Fox had been with the Templars for only a few days and they hadn’t gotten around to taking her up into the Gallows proper. The only way the ginger Templar could know she was a mage is if he was part of what happened to her.  As nice as Justice’s first thought of declaiming the Templar’s crime to the crowd would be in a perfect world, nothing would come of it in Kirkwall. Anders preferred the second thought of dealing the deserved punishment out himself, but it wasn’t the time or the place right now. Now was lose any tails and get home safe time.

A small part of him was grateful that the one Templar he remembered from Ferelden hadn’t recognized Fox. Before the Blight, Cullen had been fast developing a reputation as a soft touch and a fair man. Anders hadn’t been able to see either quality in the current tales about Meredith’s protege, but at least the Gallows hadn’t corrupted him entirely yet. 

There was a small silver and white furred cat half hidden in the shadows of the next alley, and the former Warden released the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Fox leapt easily to his shoulders, digging claws into the feathers as she nuzzled at his cheek.  “I think we’re clear for now.” He reached up and rubbed affectionately at her fluffy ears as he stepped through the nearest grate into Darktown. “We probably should have just stayed in bed today, and let Hawke deal with Aveline’s problems by themselves.”

“The day was turning out relatively fine until Ser Karras saw me,” Fox muttered as she shifted back near the clinic. “I think he assumed I was either dead or out of the city until today.”

“Sweetheart. Did they take any of your blood when you were first handed over to them?” Anders asked, a thought occurring to him.

“No, why?” she asked, still pacing nervously across the clinic. “You mean like for those weird, somehow not blood magic at all, phylactery things they use? No, I don’t… I don’t think they planned to keep me that long. They had the leashkey already.” She rubbed at the bracelet self consciously.

“That’s something, at least. If they hunt you, they have to do it themselves. I don’t think anyone in the Alienage or Darktown would give up the clinic willingly, so we have that as well.” Anders stepped behind her, wrapping his arms protectively around her shoulders and resting his chin on her head. “It might be best if you didn’t leave here as yourself for a while, little fox.”

“I know. Doesn’t mean I have to like the idea,” the much shorter healer muttered, leaning back into his chest. “At least I can finish editing that Manifesto of yours. And reorganize the potion shelves. And… Well, it isn’t like there is ever a shortage of things that need to get done in here.”

“Hanged Man should still be safe for us, if Varric has any say about it. I’ll sneak you there for Wicked Grace night under my coat. If you don’t fit in my pocket as a cat, you do as a fluffy fennec, Sweetheart.” He kissed under her ear as he teased, and she reached up to lace her fingers with his. 

“I suppose that might work. And Merrill wanted my help with that broken mirror. She said last time it liked me better, for some reason.” Fox smiled as Anders snorted, still holding her close. “You’ll have to do all the marketing for a while, though.”


	15. Karras

Stretching in the summer sunlight, he perused the stalls further down the street with the idle amusement of a man who had already found what he needed. Tomwise had their order ready a day early, there had been a good bargain on what foodstuffs their little cupboards lacked, and Fox was unlikely to return from Merrill’s until dark, even in cat form.  It couldn’t hurt anything to enjoy the day for a little longer. 

He had to admit, there had been less fuss than he expected for the last month. Maybe it was that they were busy holding the city under martial law, but there had actually been less patrols near the Alienage and Darktown than before. Maybe that Templar had decided one little elven mage, who would have already left the city if she were possessed of common sense, wasn’t worth the effort of hunting. It would be amusing if the last month Fox had spent hiding and playing least in sight had been pointless. Much less so from her perspective, of course, and far better caution than caught by Templars.

A display of bright velveteen ribbons caught his eye, and he turned. Frivolity it might be, but it would make her smile, and she could use a spare tie for her braid. And they both needed new wraps for their staff grips, anyway. The brief moments of indulgence and contentment he shared with his Fox might be stolen from time they could spend prepping the clinic or planning for the Underground, but… But everytime they took time for themselves, they came back to their duties and the fight stronger, rested and ready. A little frivolity had its place, even in the pursuit of Justice.

He felt the rumbling, only half reluctant agreement from the back of his mind and grinned. Taking the moment, he added some fresh pastries and a new hair tie for himself into the basket.

 

He was still in that cheerful mood when he got back to the clinic. Humming under his breath, he settled the pastries on a covered plate, with the ribbon tied into a festive bow above it.   Fox would laugh at it when she got back, those bright aquamarine eyes sparkling. She’d been a little quieter the last month, having to sneak around to get anywhere outside the clinic. Luckily, no one in the Alienage seemed to take notice of the cat that kept visiting Merrill, strolling over the roofs in bright summer sunlight.

It was a beautiful day, and he was living the life he had dreamed of back in the Tower. He shared his bed with a pretty girl who adored him, they had good food filling their cupboards, and there were plenty of fools to toss lightning at. He had a purpose, a cause to bring justice to, and he and Justice found consensus on more everyday. 

Still humming a bit, he got something resembling actual food going on the hearth, a kettle of water heating for tea, and was setting out plates when the door opened. Even as he was about to turn to tease Fox for staying out even later than usual, it occurred to him that she never bothered to use the door in cat form. Anders whirled, scrambling for the staff he’d left on the far workbench as the Smite hit.

  
  
  


The smite hit hard, and the Silence that settled around him muffled the spirit borne outrage at the back of his mind, if none of his own. Anders lunged forward anyways, hoping to dodge around the Templar and get to his staff, or maybe just to the door. The warrior sidestepped, swinging out pommel first at the scrambling mage.

A dull thud, and pain blossomed out at the back of his skull, everything blurring as his feet skidded out from under him uncoordinatedly. Dimly, almost like being underwater, he heard the clink of metal, felt himself hauled up like a sack of flour into one of the clinic chairs. When his vision cleared and reality came roaring back, he was staring at the suppression cuffs around his thin wrists. The long chain looped around the legs of the chair he was in, but it was still nothing he couldn’t get out of eventually. He had spent years practicing to deal with tricks like that, but…

“No need to panic, robe. Let’s consider this your lucky day.” Ginger bearded Ser Karras smirked dangerously at him, leaning back against the table. “I’m already neck deep in paperwork. I’ll cut you loose, forget all about your pretty face and this cute little hidey hole. All you have to do is tell me where she is.”

“What she? I have no idea who you’re talking about.” Anders retorted, keeping his face as blank and confused as possible, even as icy fear slid up his spine. With barely a flicker of change to his smirk, the Templar backhanded him. Anders spat some of the blood from the inside of his cheek, still staring blankly up at Karras.

“I’ll let you have that one. The next lie out of your mouth costs you a broken bone. I’ve heard casting magic gets very tricky without working fingers.” The templar contemptuously swept the contents of the table onto the floor, plates shattering. “ I’m looking for a knife eared Vint whore that got herself poached out of Templar custody earlier this year. Tiny, silver collared, lyrium tattoos.” 

The apostate fought to keep the appearance of calm. If he could distract the Templar long enough, there was a trick to undoing cuffs like these.... “And why do you think I’d know where she is? What do you want with her?”

“You were awfully cozy with her at the palace last month. Beyond that, I count two staves in this hovel, two pillows on the bed, a fair amount of silvery hair in the hair brush over there…” Karras patted his bruised cheek in a mockery of sympathy. “I can’t blame you, really. She’s one of the best fucks in the city. See, me and my boys, we weren’t done breaking her yet when someone took her, and she was breaking so prettily for us.”  Anders couldn’t stop the angry flush rising over his neck, the white knuckled fists against the magic suppressing cuffs, and the Templar chuckled. “Tell you what, robe, I’ll be generous. Tell me where she is and who has the leashkey right now, and I’ll dump her back here when I’m done, let you have whatever’s left. She might even still be breathing. Best offer you’re going to get.”

The blond healer stopped fidgeting with the cuffs for a moment, staring at the lazily smirking Knight Lieutenant. Muffled in the back of his mind, even Justice went silent. Slowly, deliberately, he let the still oozing blood from his cheek pool in his mouth before he spat it at Karras’ face. “Fuck you. Go fuck yourself with your own sword.” He could hear his cheek bone crack under the next gauntleted blow, the splintering feeling of his nose breaking, but neither made a dent in the cold fury radiating through him. 

“That was a very bad answer, apostate.” The templar remarked, wiping the bloody sputum off his face. “I’ll make sure the last thing I ram into her raw, gaping, hole is a sword, after I tell her who to thank for the idea.  Where is she?”

“She left weeks ago. Something about cities run by templars being bad news.” Anders told him, tipping his head back in an attempt to control the nosebleed.

With a resigned sigh, Karras grabbed one of the cuffs, driving a thin dagger through a wide link to pin it to the table. “I warned you about lying.” He looked at the long, graceful fingers for a moment before casually snapping the smallest of them. “You’re still setting a damn table for two. Where is she?”

“She was eaten by the ghost of the Lowtown butcher last week. I’m just sentimental,” the blond mage spat, trying to breathe slowly, knowing what was coming even before the templar grabbed the next finger. 

 

   


“I don’t know where she is,” Anders wheezed, trying not to look at the ruin of his hands as he searched his mind for more plausible lies. “I expected her back already, but she could be anywhere.” 

“Fine, then, I might actually believe that one. Who has the leashkey when she isn’t here?” Karras was still leaning against the table, looking far too pleased with the damage he was dealing.

“No one. We managed to break it. Precisely so no one like you could get control of her again.”  He couldn’t help flinching a little as armored gauntlets threaded their way into his long hair, tipping his head up so the Templar could study his face. As much as it hurt to confess that much of the truth, it was the only answer he could think of that didn’t sent this sadist to one of the others. 

“Pity. We’ll just have to stay here and wait for her then.” The ginger ran a metal clad finger over Anders’ cracked cheekbone, chuckling at the pained wince. “You are very feisty for a robe, though, and you look so very attractive covered in your own blood. The mages back at the Gallows cave at the first threat of hanging or tranquility. I haven’t had to have this long a discussion in ages.”  Karras petted the blond mage’s bruises almost absently. “It will almost be a waste when I kill you in front of that little whore.”

“Her name’s Fox.” he hissed, and the hand in his hair tightened painfully. “We’ll kill you for this, in the end.”

“Don’t be stupider than you look. You aren’t going to be in any condition to do anything. And if she was any kind of proper mage, the other Vints wouldn’t have handed her over to us.” Karras was still tangling his fingers roughly in the long blond hair, even as he smiled darkly. “I have a fair amount of free time coming and a bag full of stamina draughts. As far as I’m concerned, the only name she needs is Fucktoy.”  He let go with a sudden shove, knocking the chair over with Anders still chained to it. “But then, really, that’s the only name any of you filthy robes need. Best part of my job is teaching you that.” 

The blond mage half tumbled with the chair, the cuffs around his wrists still pinned to the table. “You’re a monster,” he wheezed, glaring up with blue streaked brown eyes. “Worse than any demon.”

The templar leaned over, grabbing hard at the back of Anders’ neck. “Now, now. Monsters hurt people, robe. You’re just a mage, and, unfortunately, one I’m pretty sure would bite unless I broke your jaw.”  He yanked one of the daggers back out of the table, slicing down the length of the long tan coat, peeling it back and ripping the feathered pauldrons off the blue shoulders. “So I’ll have to find some other way to occupy myself until the Vint comes home. Bet I can have you begging me to kill you by the time she does.” He shoved the thin blond forward, watching the pinned wrist bend out of position, grinning as the mage under him gasped in pain. When the coat hung in tatters over bleeding, bony shoulders, Karras twirled the blade and drove it back into the table through Ander’s free hand. “You’re a strong willed thing, but I’ll get you screaming eventually. It’s just a matter of how long it will take.”

Anders was fighting to keep his breathing even, to bury the pain back under the fury. But his shoulders were shaking, and the Templar was petting him again, letting the edges of his gauntlets catch on the still bleeding cuts. And the muffled spirit at the back of his mind wasn’t enough to block out the memories flooding up as armored hands slid down to his lower back. 


	16. Fury

Heat, bright light, and a roar like an open furnace echoed before the hands vanished from his back, before the Templar was slammed into the stone wall with a clatter of metal. Fox stood in the middle of the room, the ends of her hair sparking into eddies of flame. “Get away from him,” she snarled, a fire wrapped hand still extended. 

Karras struggled back to his feet, tossing a smite at her as he balanced himself on the table’s edge. The flames surrounding her flickered out for a few endless heartbeats, then flared brighter as her brands lit, and she twitched her hand at him. Fire rose from the floor, wrapping like vines around the templar’s limbs, suspending him a few feet in the air. “I will kill you slowly for this, filthy Vint bitch,” he swore at her.

Fox glanced over at Anders, bleeding, bruised, still bound and slumped over the table, back at the furious templar, tilting her head slowly to one side. “Wrong answer.”  A flick of her wrist, and a whip of flame spun out, lashing across his face to leave a deep burned welt. She listened to his sputtered curses for a moment, then flicked the flame whip back over his mouth, burning into the edges. “Still not the right answer, Ser Karras..” 

The next thing out of his mouth was an wordless shriek, as the fire vines holding him tightened into the gaps between his gauntlets and bracers. His hands fell to the floor, leaving behind charred stumps as the vines vanished into themselves, more sprouting to wrap around his torso. “Fucking bitch mage...Stop this!” he screamed, as some of the vines shifted lower.

“That didn’t sound like begging or an apology. Try again, Templar. But you might want to hurry.” Fox suggested, tilting her head the other way as the armor under the vines began to deform and liquify. At her feet, the stone had blackened, some of the nearest cots beginning to smolder. “I’m not sure disarming you is quite enough, all things considered.” There was a puddle of molten metal under the still suspended Templar, whose screams were increasingly incoherent. What skin was increasingly visible was charred black and raw red, bright bits of molten steel melding into exposed bone. But the man still screamed, though his lungs should have burned out of his chest.  “Beg nicely enough, and I’ll let you die.”

 

Anders hauled himself back to his feet, carefully working the dagger back out of his hand. Bracing himself, he yanked his broken hands back out of the cuffs, feeling the magic seeping back. Under the echoing screams, he heard a small whimper, and looked over to see Merrill. The Dalish first was backed into a corner, staring at the fires Fox had surrounded herself with, and Fox herself with shocked terror.  Following her gaze to the still burning, undying wretch, the sneering fury his little fox was watching the Templar with, his breath caught. “Fox..Firefox…” he called, eyes flooding with blue. Those aquamarine eyes turned to him, something entirely not sane lurking in them. He extended his broken hands to her, fractures of blue flickering up his arms. “There will be justice enough in his death now. Firefox, please come back to us?”

She stared at him impassively for a moment longer, as he took a stumbling step forward towards her. Fox blinked then, closing the distance between them. “I… Oh. Anders, vhenan,” she whispered, cradling his bruised face in her hands as the screaming stopped behind her. “What he did to you…”

“It’ll be okay, sweetheart. I’ll be okay.” he started to reach for her, wincing as the movement jarred his broken fingers.

“I.. I’m going to have to set the bones before I fix them…” She told him, cupping a hand over his. He nodded, leaning against her shoulder as he braced himself. She had his hands straightened out and was finessing the fractures in his wrists when Merrill calmed down. 

The Dalish exile made a wide berth around the blackened circle of stone and the pile of ash and cooling metal, but cautiously approached the other mages. Her green eyes widened even farther when she saw the bruises and cuts Anders was still covered in. “Oh dear. We were working on the mirror, and Foxfire got this funny look on her face and said she needed to go home right away….”

“I had a bad feeling, and… Damn them to the void. How did he…” Her hands shook, even as she kept the spell going, carefully mending the cracked bones of his face. When she finished with his broken bones and had taken the oomph out of his collection of shallow cuts and bruises, Anders gingerly laced his fingers with hers, tugging her down into his lap on the floor.

“He remembered I was with you at the palace, tracked me back from the market today. It was such a nice day… I should have been more careful coming home.” He draped his arms over her shoulders, burying his face into her hair while he convinced himself everything would be fine. “Go home, Merrill. I think we’ll be alright now. Fox just… lost her temper for a bit.”

 

Everything seemed to crash in on him at once, like a drowning man, thrown back to shore by a careless wave. A cold draft blew through the thin tatters left of his coat, and he found himself shivering uncontrollable, clinging to the warm elf on his lap. An endless litany of how badly the evening could have ended ran through his mind, far louder than whatever quiet words Fox and Merrill were sharing. 

One of their rough blankets draped over his shaking shoulders, as Fox rose from his lap, her tone soothing but not quite making it through the noise in his head. Her small hand latched gently onto what was left of his sleeve, and he followed her out of the clinic. He was certain she had told him where they were going, but couldn’t remember where. So he followed her out through the maze of tunnels, focusing on her hand, now softly grasping at his still tender fingers. It was so warm, like her skin always was, except where delicate lines of silver blue lyrium ran.  A flood of noise and light exploded around them, a familiar voice raised in clear tones of concern before they stepped back into quiet, dim flickering light.

There seemed to be a bed under him, lower and softer than his own, as he was gently nudged into sitting down and the warm hand was removed from his. He fisted his fingers into the thick blankets, trying not to think. Karras was dead, but the venom he had been whispering between questions and broken bones lingered. What he had done to Fox before handing her over to the other Templars, what he was going to do when he caught her. What he was going to make Anders watch him do, before he made her watch what would happen to him… Karras was dead. Karras was dead and a pile of ash and molten metal. He was dead and they were not. 

He shivered again, and something warmly damp and soft brushed against his cheek, as the mattress dipped next to him. When he mustered the energy to look up, he met worried bluegreen eyes, as Fox gently washed the layers of dried and tacky blood off his face. “Amatus? Are you with me again?” she asked, biting her lip. 

“Maybe?” Anders closed his eyes for a moment, trying to chase out the tumult of thoughts that threatened to drown everything out again. The soft brush of the rag over his bruised face returned, and he leaned into it, reaching out blindly for her, tangling his hand into the ends of her hair. “I… Where are…” he asked, opening his eyes again to survey the strange room, still shaking. It was an effort to speak, each word clawing its way up out of the raw, abraded desert of his throat.

Fox dropped the rag back into the small bowl of dark tinged water, smiling ruefully at the blond. “Hanged Man. I wasn’t sure if that... that… if the Templar had backup lurking, and you were…” He shivered again, despite the blanket over him and the fire blazing in the corner, and she winced. “Are going a bit shocky on me. Varric said we could have this room for a few days.” She flicked her fingers, a small tumbler leaping to her hands from the nearby end table, and offered it to him, tapping the blankets under him until they radiated warmth. 

The cold water eased the ache of his throat, only to pool in his stomach, draining the last of what energy had returned to him. “I should thank him,” he heard himself say, leaning into Fox’s warm side, still clutching the ends of her long hair like a lifeline. “Andraste’s tits, I should… I haven’t even thanked you, yet. Fox, you saved my life, coming back when you did.”

“He wasn’t… Karras was hunting me. You withstood I don’t know how long of his torture, rather than give me up to him, rather than send him to Merrill’s.” She scooted back farther onto the bed, tugging him gently into resting his head on her lap. When he had settled, she pulled the spelled blanket over his shoulders, combing her fingers through his hair until his shivering stilled. “I’m sure Valor will be very pleased when we get to the Fade. He and Justice might even go an evening without sniping at each other.”

“Its nothing I haven’t… Sweetheart, I used to dream about having someone come and save me, from the Templars, from solitary… I always seemed a little more capable of showing my gratitude in those dreams, but…” He reached up, brushing the pads of his fingers over her cheek. 

“We can discuss that later, Amatus,” she murmured, kissing his fingers and palm fondly. “I love you, Anders. I would burn a path into Aeonar to protect you. Into the Void itself if I had too.”  He blinked up at her, the bright blue flecks in his dark brown eyes seeming to glow for a moment, and nuzzled sleepily at her wool covered thigh. “Lingering mana imbalance from an over enthusiastic smite, adrenaline crash from being tortured, and post major healing exhaustion,” she diagnosed, smiling softly down at him. “ Consider yourself on bedrest for at least a day, and restricted from strenuous magic use for a day after that.”

“This would be the situation that gets a pretty girl to order me to bed,” Anders sighed, yawning halfway through. 

She flicked lightly at his ear, and laughed. “Oh, Anders.”  Tugging the blankets more up around them both, Fox shifted to curl protectively around him. “We’ll see how you feel tomorrow. No strenuous magic doesn’t mean other vigorous activity is necessarily off limits, Amatus,” she noted, nuzzling at the back of his neck as he fell asleep.


	17. Broken mirrors

Varric found her in the tavern kitchen early the next morning, charming the bemused cook out of a tray of soft foods. “How’s Blondie doing? He looked pretty bad when you dragged him in yesterday.”

“Enough rest, a touch more magic, and he’ll be fine again. Even with how badly that… Templar worked him over.”  Fox set the tray on the nearest table, smiling reassuringly at the dwarf. “Thanks from both of us for the loan of the room, by the way.”

“It’s a small room, usually empty this time of year. Writing it off for a few days won’t hurt much.” He rubbed at his neck uncertainly. “I’m less confident… Snapdragon, if the Templars found the pair of you and the Clinic once, what stops it from happening again? You can’t kill all of them.”

“Merrill and I made a deal before we headed here yesterday. She’ll help me set a paling around the Clinic that should keep anyone who wishes us ill from being able to find it. I just have to go talk to her clan and fetch a tool she needs for the mirror.” Fox collected the tray again, quietly carrying it down the empty hall.

“Ah, shit. Daisy is, well, Daisy, but that mirror worries me. She asked Hawke to get her that tool, I think. An Arulun’ whatzit? He told her no, and I’m not sure Snowflake was wrong, as unhappy as it made her.” He followed down the hall, as she carefully opened the door and balanced the tray on an end table. “Blondie looks better. Still looks like he tried working an anvil with his face, but better,” He noted, glancing over at the deeply sleeping mage. “Are you sure you want to get involved with ancient elven artifacts, and Daisy’s demon friend, Snapdragon? Can’t you get the pale whatever set up yourself?” 

“No, paling and wards… They require either blood magic or nearly a year’s worth of carving runic glyphs around Darktown. And despite what Fenris seems to believe, not all Tevinter mages are trained in that sort of magic. I know the theory, but the Merrill kitten is going to have to do the actual casting this time.” Fox bit her lip a bit ruefully. “As weird as the idea of talking to a Dalish keeper is, the Mirror isn’t that bad. Merrill says it likes me.”

“If you say so, snippy little snapdragon. You still look as tired as you did when you got in last night. Did you sleep or just watch Blondie all night?” Varric chuckled as Fox snorted irritably and tossed a rag at him.

“ Shock is tricky, I was worried. Out, dwarf. We’ll see you tomorrow for Wicked Grace.”

 

 When he reached the Fade, Justice found her sitting cross legged on what passed for ground, staring intently at the twisted, scorched mirror in front of her, trying to piece meaning out of the crazed shatter of glass in the still burning frame. “I didn’t expect to find you alone,” he remarked, opting to sit next to her.  Through the dense spider web of cracks, he could see a clear image where his last visit had only shown a dim silhouette, a reflection of the Firefox as she had once been. Crowned, unyielding, throned, her closest servants kneeling behind her, staring imperiously out at the optimistic incarnation he had grown so fond of. 

“Hope and Valor were being… overbearing. I asked them to give me some space for a few nights.” She spun the warped, half melted leash key around her wrist, not looking up at the spirit side of her lover. “I worry I won’t be me anymore when she finishes getting out,” she whispered, half reaching for the glass as her past echoed the gesture. “Valor… He said that what’s on the other side of the mirror is me, the real me, and Hope… She insists I’m more than I was, that I will be better than I was. Both of them think I should shatter the rest of the mirror as soon as possible, release the bindings. But what if… I could have taken out most of the clinic if you hadn’t called me back out of the temper, vhenan.”

“But you did hear us when we called to you, and the Templar’s fate was… deserved.” Justice noted, somewhat awkwardly patting her shoulder. “Little fox, the mirror will break, and the bindings with it. If you do not learn to control your powers, they will remain out of control, and remain so in ways greater than what has already leaked through.” 

“That.. That is fair,” she winced. “If… If I was what I fear I was, then… There was reason to lock me away. If I go back to that…” She buried her face in her arms, hiding behind her long hair.

He watched her thoughtfully for a long moment, indecision flickering over his face, before he reached out again. Long blue fractured fingers carded softly, reassuringly through her hair as tinges of brown swirled into the glowing blue of his eyes. “As long as you endeavor to remain just, we… I will stay with you.” She looked up at that, smiling softly as she leaned into him.

“I’d like that very much. I think… I think I’ll wait just a while longer, make sure I have a handle on what I’ve already gotten back before I release the rest of it.”  She leaned further and he pulled her into his lap, arms clumsily wrapping around her shoulders.

“Are they glaring at you or me, vherlin?” Fox asked, surveying the array of wary, suspicious looks as she and Merrill walked into the Dalish camp. “I didn’t think I was that obviously Tevinter today,” she added, glancing down at her heavily patched woolen dress.

“I… I don’t know. And you’re getting as bad as Isabela. I’m not a lost kitten.” The younger elf huffed, trying not to pay attention to the way her clanmates flinched back as she passed, the way mothers pulled children out of sight.

“Aren’t you?” the healer chuckled quietly. “I almost wish we’d brought her along. It couldn’t have made this that much worse.” She glanced up as they passed between the assorted statues of the creators, absently frowning and taking a step farther away from the one holding a bow. Right above her head, the empty brazier held by the closest statue burst into golden flame, and she flinched back into Merrill as half the camp turned. “Please tell me it always does that, that it’s a whatever that creator is thing,” she hissed, without any real hope, watching the flames slowly flicker out again as she stepped further away.

“Sylaise is the hearthkeeper, but no. I’ve never seen her statue do that.”  Merrill babbled, wide eyed at the other mage, who sighed heavily. “I did tell you about her, and the other Creators, when we were working on the eluvian. She’s…”

“Flames and healing and all things domestic, yes. I remember, vherlin,” Fox remarked, carefully putting more distance between herself and the image. “Let’s deal with your keeper first and talk about that… much later, I think.” 

The green eyed blood mage huffed again, but nodded, leading the rest of the way to Marethari’s aravel. The grey haired keeper looked hesitantly hopeful at Merrill’s presence, in comparison to the rest of the clan. “Merril, dah’len, you’ve returned to us. Have you reconsidered your path at last? And who have you brought with you?”

“No, keeper, I know I can restore the eluvian, restore some of our history. I need the Arulin’holm, the artifact Master Ilen keeps.” Merrill watched the Keeper’s mouth thin with disapproval, trembling a little until she felt Fox gently nudge at her shoulder.  “This is my friend, Foxfire.”

“Halisa, really. But Foxfire or just Fox to my friends. I help run a healing clinic back in the city.” The shorter elf smiled brittlely at the Dalish leader, who glanced uneasily over at the last guttering flames in Sylaise’s brazier, and back at the white haired mage. “Merrill’s a good friend, and a source of fascinating stories about your people. I thought I’d like to meet her clan at least once, and she was kind enough to bring me along.”

“As her friend then, I must implore you to ask Merrill to reconsider. What she is meddling with is something our ancestors meant to be forgotten,” Marethari pleaded. “It has already separated her from us, and no good can come of it.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Fox remarked easily, staring up at the taller mage. “Merrill’s gotten to learn a great deal about how the rest of the world works, and has taught a number of the Alienage elves about your ways. She’s learned how to finesse artifacts older than dirt, and all sorts of new magical techniques. And it might just be possible for her to end up with a working Eluvian.” She tilted her head like an amused cat, watching the keeper fume. “Vherlin, on a scale of one to ten, how flammable would you rate the tool you need as compared to the rest of the camp?” she asked lightly. “Just in case.”

Marethari blinked, staring at the tiny healer unbelievingly. “What?”

“No, Fox,” Merrill hastily interjected, and the smaller elf merely grinned at her, shrugging.  “I invoke Vir Sulevanan. Name a task so I can have the tool, whether you approve or not.”

“Well, I’m glad I can still disapprove,” the Keeper muttered. “Even if you have chosen to live apart, you are still one of the people. You are entitled to an artifact of our people, if you can complete a suitable task,” she intoned with a trace of scorn. “A Varterral has killed three of our hunters, and threatens the clan. Find them and end the threat, and I will give you what you request.” 

“How did your clan manage to annoy a Varterral into killing elves?” Fox asked, incredulously. “Never mind. I’m not not sure I even want to know,” she sighed, already heading up towards the mountain.


	18. the years between, part 1

Merrill gathered the fallen hunter’s amulets as she found them, whispering prayers for them as Fox watched quietly. Chandan, Harshal, Radha. They followed the trail deeper into the caves, making easy ash of the dangers that threatened them. As the armored elf without vallaslin panicked at the very sight of the frail bloodmage, calling her a monster, Fox momentarily entertained the idea of cornering him with fire until they could get a straight answer out of him. When the fool turned to run right under the beast’s legs, Fox tossed a shield over him just in time.  

She strolled fearlessly between the enraged Varterral and the would be hunter, holding out her hand. Merrill cringed, and waited for the torrent of flame, only to find the fearsome monster quiescent under the healer’s hand. Fox murmured a low voiced string of fluid elven, out of which the keeper’s first could only pick out repeated apologies and the word home. It pressed it’s head up into her hand one more time, and collapsed into a pile of ash. “Ir’abelas,” she repeated once more, and glared over at the still cowering Pol. “When you’re quite done thinking the kitten’s about to eat you, the way out should be clear. Your clan has lost enough for today.”     
When he had scrambled out of the way, Merrill cleared her throat softly, staring wide eyed at Fox. “Fox, Halisa… what are you?” she asked, awed and not a little nervous, looking as if she would drop to her knees at any moment.

“Exactly the same thing I was when we left the city, Vherlin. A healer, a dreamer, and your friend. A friend who might very well set your hair on fire if you start groveling,” Fox retorted, and Merrill laughed, wiping at her eyes. 

“The Asha’bellanar said elves bow too easily, when Hawke brought her back at Mythal’s altar.” She walked back over to the tiny healer, who elbowed her as she collected the amulets again.

“What? Why would… “ The healer started to question, only to stop as a number of facts arranged themselves into a pattern. Anders had shared stories about the Witch of the Wilds, and her dealings with the Wardens. Hawke had told another, even less credulous set of tales about her powers…  and how unfair it was that she wouldn’t teach him how to turn into a dragon. An old witch, capable of taking dragon form, slain during the Blight by the Warden Commander, brought back to life here, in an ancient ritual. Fox sighed, rubbing at the half melted runes on her silver collar, and debated how long she could delude herself that the altar being used was entirely coincidental and ignore all the potential ramifications.  “Nevermind, vherlin. Whoever told you that clearly had a point. Let’s get your artifact so we can go home and templar proof the clinic enough that Anders and I can get out of the Tavern.” 

“There’s an old story about Sylaise I heard once, at the clan gathering. The Dread Wolf laid a curse on one of her priests, and she turned into a fox to follow him back through the woods until she could find out how to break it. He set her tail on fire, but she spun the flame into a net to catch him.” Merrill mentioned, staring at the amulets, missing the amused lift of Fox’s brow. “But the other clan’s hah’ren told it much better. He also had one about her turning into smoke to steal a secret from Dirthamon, and about her turning into a fox again to chase Andruil as a hare.”

“Stories change with every telling, vherlin. Even the ones born in truth, or haven’t you been listening to Varric?” the older elf remarked with a half concealed smirk, as they climbed back out of the caves. “Does she at least catch Andruil in that story?” she asked, after a span of quiet.

“No, Andruil turned into a falcon and chased her back to the Home tree again.” The dalish apprentice corrected, giggling a little at the exasperated look on Fox’s face. “I’ll try to remember more of the stories for you next time we’re working.”

“If it makes you happy, Merrill. Maybe I’ll tell you some of the stories they tell to Tevinter children, if I can remember how they go.” 

 

Pol had beaten them back to the camp, and the glares still directed at Merrill were matched by the number of odd looks Fox was patently ignoring as she strode straight back to the Keeper.  “One regrettably dead Varterral, as requested,” she announced, holding out her hand for the tool as Merrill held out the amulets. 

Marethari handed over the arulin’holm, uncertainty in her eyes as she glanced between her apprentice and the delicately built healer. “Some of the elves from the city visit us, for various reasons. They have spoken about you, Halisa. They speak of you as a devoted healer, someone doing what needs to be done. I beg of you, by all the creators, please talk Merrill out of this. Keep the Arulin’holm yourself, but do not let her continue what she has begun. No good can come of rebuilding what our ancestors meant to be forgotten.”

“You seem very sure that they did, and that they knew why. Did you ever think that maybe it was buried by those that had already forgotten why it was made?” Fox countered, flipping the curved tool over her hand idly. “You speak of dangers and dark paths, but I don’t think you even know what the Eluvian really is.” She tossed the tool up and caught it in a careless, practiced movement, and held it out handle first to the dark haired elf at her side. “There is always danger in magic, just as much as there is always a way to mitigate it. I assure you, we are taking all the precautions warranted when we work on it.”

The Keeper flushed angrily at her clearly dismissive tone, drawing herself up. “I suppose I must expect that level of flippancy from a Tevinter flat ear, especially one who has forgotten herself enough to live openly with a shemlen. You can’t be expected to know our ways, but I had hoped for some level of caution.”  At the center of the camp, Sylaise’s brazier flared into roaring life.

Merrill paled, reaching out to grasp at the healer’s sleeve. “Fox…” she said quietly, pleadingly, and the flames steadied.

“It’s alright, Vherlin. I was trained in Tevinter, and I am bedding Anders, openly and without shame. I would like to think I’m not the kind of mage, the kind of person who would hurt someone for speaking the truth.” Fox shrugged, watching the Keeper with more amusement than irritation.  When Marethari finally looked away, the shorter elf smiled. “That said, now that ma’falon has her trinket, do you think I’d be allowed to peruse Master Ilen’s trade goods? Because I’ve got a bit of coin on me, and that ironwood mortar on his bench would help with the summer balms I have to get started on this week.”  

“I’m sure Master Ilen and our other crafters will be glad of your coin,” the keeper remarked in a subdued tone, taking a step back as she gestured towards the crafter’s bench.

  
  
  
  
  


 

“Hawke, please remind me why you decide to drag me to a fancy party. With Orlesians.” Anders asked, leaning against the hedge and trying not to snag the new black coat Fox had found for him. “This is not exactly my field of expertise.”

“Well, you were a Warden once, and Archdemons are a little like dragons, which are a teeny bit like wyverns…” Gerry suggested,  taking another swig of wine.

“I can think of far more productive things to do than pal around with a bunch of stuffy Orlesians, hunting beasts that were minding their own business.” The blond healer sighed, staring off into the crowd. “Especially during the height of Summer Flux back in Darktown.”

“Snowflake, what did you say to put that look on Blondie’s face this time?” Varric asked, leaving the red haired assassin to toy with the lock they had been examining.

“Nothing, he’s just being all Justice mopey again. Who else would I bring, Anders? Fenris still has people hunting him, Sebastian was busy, Carver doesn’t return my letters, and I’m not quite stupid enough to bring Isabela or Merrill to a fancy party.”  Hawke pointed out. “I have a short list of socially acceptable friends, and the two of you are most of it. Well, the two of you and Aveline, but she’s married now, and has an actual job Donnic would have to cover for her. He’s a good guy, I don’t want to do that to him.”

Anders stared at Hawke for a long moment, unable to put together a coherent response, fighting the urge to smash a lightning sparked fist into the younger mage’s smirking face. Clearly reading the danger signs, the dwarf stepped between them, trying to force space. “Blondie, you know Snowflake didn’t mean that like it sounded. Go play look out for our little Qunari friend.”  The mage rolled his eyes, but took up a spot further along the hedge between Tallis and the fluttering nobles at the party. “Hawke. Dear fluffy little Snowflake. I love you to bits, but that was an asshole comment,” Varric sighed, pulling the brunette mage out farther out of earshot.

Gerry looked baffled. “Why? The only thing Anders is making money at is helping out when we go solve problems people throw at me, same as Merrill. You own the Hanged Man, Aveline has the guard, Isabela and Fenris pick up mercenary work, and Sebastian is … Well, he’s a Vael.  I know Anders plays with healing at that clinic of his, but…” 

 “And I know you’ve been away from Lowtown for a while, but to people who didn’t fall into a mansion full of money… Blondie’s clinic is the difference between life and death for a lot of people. It’s not some cute hobby he plays at just because he isn’t getting paid. It’s an actual job, one his Snapdragon has to cover until he gets back.” Varric set Bianca down, rubbing at his face as Hawke continued looking somewhat confused.  “Just go mingle with the fancy people and be cute. You’re good at that, Snowflake.”

The Champion grinned back, after a briefly puzzled glance over at a still fuming Anders. “Aren’t I? That guy over there has a butt almost as nice as that one blond Templar back home,” he remarked, sidling off into the crowd, flirting impartially. 

Varric watched him leave, sighed heavily, and decide to go try to soothe Blondie’s ruffled feathers. “I should have told him I was too busy to come. And insisted, when he didn’t believe me. As Fox reminded me when I told her about the trip, ‘no’ is a complete sentence,” the mage muttered, fingers curling around the thin white braid decorating his staff grip.

“You know he’s glad you came along. I’m glad you came along, Blondie. You’ve hauled us out of death by Wyvern at least once this trip already, and Bianca would be very lonely if I died.”  The dwarf patted his crossbow consolingly, and the former warden snorted softly. “Are you more upset about him dismissing your clinic or Snapdragon?”

“I should be more upset about the clinic at this point. I’ve been running that for almost six years, helping people, convincing them that magic can be used for good. And it’s working, almost no one in Lowtown or Darktown turns in mages to the Chantry anymore. If an apostate causes problems, they’re coming to us first, and the Underground… There are ways to look after those who can’t handle freedom well without Templars.” Anders met Varric’s eyes with a wry smile, and the dwarf felt a shudder run down his spine at how much bright blue ringed the chocolate brown. Sometimes it seemed like that was just another sign it was never just Anders there anymore.  “But, as you suggested… Aveline and Donnic have only been together a few short months longer than Fox and I, and it feels… I feel... “ He huffed, lacing his hands behind his head and studying the clouds for a moment while he searched for the right phrase. “Aveline and Donnic are married, it isn’t exactly the same situation, Blondie,” Varric pointed out carefully, trying not to think of his own complicated entanglement, made harder by his hand on the crossbow she had made for him.

“And unless the two of us take a trip over the Tevinter border, Fox and I can’t be. It’s illegal for mages to marry here without written Chantry permission. We could head far enough into the countryside and find a gullible Chantry mother, pretend to be farmhands or mercenaries and claim I’ve already gotten her in the family way to get around the fact she’s an elf.” The mage’s lip drew back at the thought of that plan. “I love her, Varric. I want to spend the rest of my life with her, but I’m not going to base that life on a lie. She deserves better than that and… and so do I.” 

“And what does your Snapdragon say about the idea?” the dwarf asked, hoping to forestall any continuance of the conversation into the rights, or lack thereof, of mages. He liked Blondie, he really did, but listening to the same rant enough times became tiresome.

“That she loves me, and she’s perfectly happy spending the rest of our lives together in the Darktown clinic or wherever we end up, as long as we are together,” Anders remarked, smiling wistfully. “I know that some of the other elves are less than polite about the fact we’re together, especially without… without a formal commitment, so to speak, but she says that no one whose opinion matters to her cares.  And I… I already have more than I could have dreamed of in the Tower, so much more than anyone still in the Gallows could hope for, and asking for more seems… greedy.” He glanced back over at Tallis, stretching out the fingers of his left hand before rubbing at the matched dagger width scars on palm and back.


	19. the years between, part 2

 

“We were ambushed on the way back from Hightown.” The lanky warrior said through gritted teeth, trying to take more of the guardsman’s weight as he staggered, blood dripping at their feet. “They got a dagger under his breastplate, and I… please, Da… Foxfire,” Fenris pleaded of the tired looking Tevinter eyeing him skeptically from inside the clinic. 

“Get him inside before he bleeds out, and I’ll do what I can,” she decided, opening the door wider and gesturing to the nearest cot. Fox whistled through her teeth as she got the guardsman’s armor off, revealing the long, deep gash over his belly. “This is bad, I’m surprised he made it here, Fenris.” Without looking up at the other elf, she started running spells over the human’s torso, paling as an exploratory prod had bloody ropes of intestines pushing up at the wound. She pressed a glowing hand down over them, her other brushing against his forehead to send him asleep.

“I was afraid of that,” Fenris whispered, slumping back against the door. “Gut wounded… if you can keep him alive a bit longer, ease his pain, I’ll go get Aveline for him. They deserve that, at least.”

“Don’t write him off just yet.” Fox murmured, hand still braced against the wound. “I’d be more confident about this if I hadn’t spent a long day dealing with summer Flux and the results of three different dock brawls, but…” The light under her hand flickered, and she set her shoulders, brands glowing brighter as she focused. “I’ve had to heal worse, when we were back with… ” Biting her lip, she pressed down a bit with both hands, the glow flaring as the edges of the long slice slowly began sealing back together, the ends of her hair sparking softly. “I’ll do what I can for Donnic. You go get Aveline.”

 

The Guard Captain was already on edge when Fenris pounded on her door, rapidly going ghost pale as the phrase ‘gut wounded’ echoed in her head. “Where is he, I need to see him.”

“The Darktown clinic wasn’t that far from where we were attacked. I hoped… It was the only thing I could think of,” the warrior admitted, as the red haired former knight followed him back down the dark streets. “Despite her faults, the  _ incae _ .. Foxfire is a capable healer. If she thinks there might be a chance…”

The elven healer’s face was drawn and her breathing ragged when they got to the clinic, the blood still splattered across her skin the only color against her greyed complexion, but the gaping wound over Donnic’s abdomen had faded into a thin, pale scar, and his chest rose and fell steadily. “I think he’ll make it,” she remarked with a weak smile. “I should keep an eye on him to make sure no more infection sets in over the next day or so, but he should be just fine after that.”

Aveline rushed forward, taking her husband’s hand as she assured himself of his continued well being. Fenris hesitated by the door, watching the other elf slowly cross the room and drop heavily into a spindly chair.  “Will you be alright?” he heard himself ask, before he could think better of it. 

She snorted softly. “Careful, puppy, I might be fooled into thinking you care.”  She leaned back, eyes closing as she tried to catch her breath. “Poultices and splints are on the side shelves, when you feel like dealing with whatever you managed to do to your wrist.”

He bit back the first five responses that leapt to his tongue, glancing between the clearly exhausted mage and his two favorite guards. At the table nearest the hearth, he spotted a pot of  now cold tea, and went for it. Aveline took a mug gratefully, still sitting at Donnic’s side, and Foxfire half startled as he dropped another on the table in front of her. Eyeing him warily, she sipped at the cold liquid as he took a seat across from her and started wrapping his injured wrist. “I… Anders is still out with Hawke at the Chateau, then?” he asked, trying to break the silence between them.

“Leaving me solely responsible for the clinic until further notice, since Hawke didn’t give us a timeline before stealing him.” She agreed with a touch of irritation, taking a deeper gulp of tea as some of the color seeped back into her skin. “Part of me wants to point out that I had plans for the sugar you put in this, but thank you.”

“It mitigates the aftereffects of draining yourself that badly, or so I was told.” Fenris focused on his wrist, trying not to think about who told him that. 

“More so if you’ve bled yourself for the magic, but it isn’t useless for this situation either.” She smiled ruefully at him, swirling the tea left in the mug. “You’ve lost my Anders a bet with little Merrill, by the way.” He looked over at that, an interested lift to his eyebrows. “She and I put a paling up around the clinic, to keep anyone who means harm to us from finding their way here. My amatus was of the opinion that under those terms, you’d never make it here again. Merrill insisted that no one in your group was mean enough to set it off, that...” she trailed off, looking away.

“I don’t know whether to be impressed with her faith in our group or wearied at her lack of self preservation. Which side of the bet did you end up on?” He rolled his eyes, rearranging the splint as she just smirked at him. “I was always under the impression that blood based wards were short lived and hard to maintain. And that the abomin… Anders was strongly opposed to blood magic to begin with.”

Foxfire shrugged, her gaze flickering over to a scorched patch in the middle of the floor. “The idea was broached to him as somewhat _ fait accompli, _ to be honest. Merrill and I split the difference. She cast it with me as the power focus, and we transferred it over to a rune stone base as soon as we could get them carved. It just needed to be done before we came back, after…”

“Varric mentioned you had an unwelcome visitor. He also implied it ended badly for the Templar.”  Fenris looked away again, making a show of fighting with the poultice jar. “I imagine Justice took control again.”

“Actually, Justice talked me down, after I lost my temper,” Foxfire corrected with a shrug, stretching out her shoulders, and extending out the heat warped leashkey, the gems along its length cracked or missing. “Lost my temper badly enough to shatter most of the binding runes, at that.”

The warrior stared at her, memories from the earliest days after the lyrium surfacing. “I… Part of me is suddenly grateful I took you unaware during your attempts to burn your way free of the estate. Although I still question how you thought that would work out for you.”

“I was… I needed to get back somewhere, I remember that much, even if exactly where still escapes me. I was  _ Laetan _ before I was betrayed into Danarius’ grasp, and… I wasn’t supposed to be there. When he refused to let me go, after… Even after I agreed to his deal...“ Fox hesitated, staring down into her mug. “Maybe that was the point it occured to me how fragile the line could really be, between free and slave.  Danarius did get one thing wrong when he sent you after me, though.”

“Oh? Despite the reputation you were getting as a rebel leader, you weren’t that hard to track down. If he hadn’t sent me, someone else would have taken you in.” Fenris snorted, tying off the end of the wrapping on his wrist.

“I wasn’t the rebel leader, actually. I volunteered to make a lot of noise and set fire to things so the actual rebels could get people out. I figure the worst that could happen to me wasn’t any worse than what I had already lost.” She drained the last of her tea, smiling at the vaguely disgruntled look on his face. “And then he threw a binding collar on me and carved this shit into my skin, and I can’t even remember exactly what… or who... I lost.” She flicked a hand, then sighed. “I’ve gotten more of it back than you have, though, so I’m sorry for my part…”

His fingers clenched around the half empty jar of ointment, enough flickers of memory rising to clarify what she meant. Across the room, Donnic made a small sound in his sleep, Aveline still clutching his hand like a lifeline, and the warrior sighed heavily. “ _ Fasta vass _ . Danarius would have run the ritual even without a healer to make sure I survived, mage. And then he made me restrain you just enough you could keep yourself alive during yours. We…” He rose, setting the leftover poultice and bandages on a workbench. “Thank you for the supplies, Foxfire.  And for Donnic.”

 

“Broth for you,” Fox firmly remarked, pressing a mug into the guardsman’s hands as he gingerly sat up on the cot, his wife rousing in the chair beside it. “Consider yourself restricted to invalid fare for another day or so. Guard captain, I do have more tea and porridge going if you’d like some,” she offered, heading back across the room to the small makeshift kitchen area with its crude hearth. As she went, she flicked her fingers, patches of dust vanishing and surfaces polishing themselves in her wake. 

“That’s a bit of clever magic,” Aveline commented, following after the small elf with a reassuring pat to Donnic’s shoulder. The healer shrugged, passing her a mug of unsweetened tea and going back to stirring the pot of thin porridge.

“It gets things done around here, at least, and I can usually spare more magic than I can time to scrub the floors. Late night emergencies notwithstanding,” she added, glancing over at the other human. 

“I appreciate what you did for us, last night. I… I was under the impression that even magic couldn’t deal with gut wounds, unless Fenris was mistaken.” the red haired former knight asked, grabbing herself a bowl from the stack the mage pointed to and ladling herself a very generous portion of the unsweetened, barely salted gruel.  Fox’s lips tightened for a moment as she scraped the little remaining into her own bowl, before she sighed and smiled at the woman.

“That… It depends on how much magic is in play, I suppose, and who is using it. Spirit healers like Anders and I are capable of doing more with less effort than someone without our training, but situations like last night still take a lot of magic, more than most mages can channel easily.” She cleaned the pot with another flicker of magic, taking her breakfast to the nearest table. “That said, it was very much touch and go last night, and if much more of his intestines had been damaged, even I might not have been able to save him. As it is I’d prefer Donnic stay here for a few days so I can burn off any infections as they start. He’ll likely end up sleeping off the healing for most of it anyway.”

Aveline frowned, starting to open her mouth, looking back over at her husband and sighing. “As long as he comes out of this alive, we’re better off than I thought we would be last night.”

“You should be able to put him back on patrol by next week, barring any major complications.” Fox remarked, collecting the bowls and dropping them into a basin before pulling a basket of potions off a shelf and lighting the lanterns just outside the door. “I don’t mind you staying and keeping him company, but if the two of you would stay out of the way in this corner? There’s a large portion of our visitors that are…  wary of the local authorities.” Propping the door open wider, she checked the prepared supplies over again, muttering under her breath, “Not without reason, given the history of this city.”


	20. the years between, part 3

There were apparently a number of people waiting for the clinic to open, the dimly lit room soon filling with an assortment of ragged people and filthy children, all looking to the little mage with hopeful, desperate eyes. She dealt out potions and spells briskly, all with a bright smile and a softly reassuring voice. On their way out, some dropped coins into the bowl by the door or set some small token on the table next to it; a loaf of brown bread, an armful of wilting vegetables, a knitted scarf. A small number of people scurried in, dropped something into the bowl or onto the table, before dashing off again with a smile from the healer, who otherwise paid no attention to who did or didn’t leave something. 

As the day crept on, the composition of the crowd shifted, the able bodied adults taking themselves off to whatever work they could find, leaving behind those no longer able to work  seeking what aid they could get and older children bringing ailing siblings in. Some of those left donations on the table, but all along the lines of pretty stones and flowering weeds, which earned the same smile from Fox that she gave to the adults donating food or money. 

An almost teenager dashed in and grabbed a handful of coins from the bowl, and Fox grabbed for Aveline’s arm before the muscular woman could give chase. “That thief just made off with most of what little you’ve gotten today!” she protested. 

“Anyone desperate enough to steal from us needs it more than we do, Guard Captain. The clinic will get by, just as it has for the last five years.” Fox insisted, hand still around as much of the redhead’s muscular wrist as she could manage.  

The former ferelden knight looked around the sparsely furnished, dingy room, taking note of the patched and worn blankets on the old cots, the scrounged, mismatched jars and vials in use on every splintered shelf. “You could at least keep the money farther from the door where you can keep an eye on it. And you could do a lot with this place if people actually paid for what they’re asking you for.” She suggested, staring down at the diminutive healer.

Fox stared right back up at the taller woman implacably, shoving her hands into the pockets of the patched, oversized blue and tan coat currently stained with anything imaginable. “I’m not going to refuse people what they need just because they can’t pay. What do you think this place is? The damn Chantry?” With an aggravated huff, she turned back to the next set of patients.

“That’s not fair. The chantry offers a number of services and charities, which is what the desperate should be turning to.” Aveline protested, still standing behind her, and the few adults still waiting chuckled darkly. 

“Might be how it works back where you’re from, doglord,” A grizzled, one legged man in dock hand gear said with a snaggletoothed smirk. “In Kirkwall, Chantry charity is for those who can afford to stay members in good standing, and they want nothing to do with you once you can’t manage your weekly tithe.”

“And forget about seeing any of those healer mages they have cooped up unless you have gold to cross a fair number of palms with. My brother’s girl got the wasting sickness ten year ago, and he spent everything he had trying to get her seen. By the time they finished all the paperwork and fees, the girl was too far gone. Mage told him that if he’d seen her a month agone, she’d have lived.” The wizened man with gnarled hands spat on the stone floor as he spoke, the others murmuring in consensus. With a self conscious cough, he looked up from the floor to the mage currently running her hands over a toddler’s swollen leg. “With respect to the Lady healer, here, and apologies.”

“It’s fine, Carter. That’s hardly the worst thing on the floor right now.” Fox waved him off, finishing with the child and moving on to peering down a teenager’s throat and reaching for a potion. “And the Captain is entitled to voice her opinion.” 

“Even if she’s wrong?” the first man grumbled, as Aveline bristled a bit, and Donnic hauled himself back upright on his cot in the corner. “Templars have the law right enough, but…”

“ Your usual balm is on that shelf, Drake. Please don’t start a fight in the clinic, especially not with the guards.” The tiny healer cleared her throat, and the man backed down. He limped over to grab the medicine she indicated, keeping a fixed glare on both guards, even as he made a point of dropping a handful of coin into the bowl on his way out. “Aveline, would my asking you to not antagonize the locals do any good?” she asked without looking at the other woman, as the crowd began to thin.

“I didn’t mean…” She glanced around the clinic again, sighing heavily. “Someday, the Knight Commander’s people are going to find this place, and my men will be asked to help take you down, you realize that? I don’t know how they haven’t tracked down a place this well trafficked already.”  Fox did look over at that, snorting in disbelief before collecting a handful of supplies and utensils to start another batch of potions. “Fine, I strongly suspect the method you two use to protect this place from the Templars, but that will only make things worse. Those who choose to live outside the law as you two do can’t be protected by it, and all the good you have done will be worth nothing against… They’ll execute both of you, and not even Hawke will be able to protect you.” 

“The current wards should hold for a few more years, longer if I finesse the right rune structure to draw from the power pooling under the city. No one who means harm to Anders, myself, or the clinic itself will be able to find the way here. They could walk past our front door a hundred times without seeing it,” the elven healer remarked, gesturing at the front of the clinic as she sliced elfroot briskly. “But even without that, what would you suggest we do, Guard Captain? Turn ourselves in? Shut this place down and lay low? Leave Kirkwall and set up somewhere else? Do you really think Darktown would be better off without us here?”

“No. I will admit that what you are doing here, it gives people hope. But maybe if the Underground was less… All that is doing is stirring up trouble, with escaped mages, murdered Templars, and those insurrectionist ‘manifesto’ pamphlets turning up everywhere from the Alienage to the Gallows itself!” Aveline growled, clenching a fist. “Do you know how much trouble that causes us when the guard is asked to track down the culprit and I know exactly where Anders is but can’t say anything?”

“So you think the mages in the damn Gallows don’t need hope just as much as the lurkers in Darktown?” Fox slammed the knife into the table and whirled on the human, eyes furious. “Laws be damned, it is never right to imprison someone for life because of a gift they were born with. Young mages need training and reassurance, not armored jailors looming over them.  Nine times out of ten a mage falls or turns to demons, it’s out of desperation or fear. Fear and desperation, Guard Captain. The Gallows reek of both, this whole city does, and you know exactly whose fault it is.” the redhead took another step closer, opening her mouth, and the elf pointed at the door again. “Maker knows home isn’t great either, but at least we don’t have abominations running around everywhere. Unless whatever you’re about to say is a constructive fucking suggestion, you can take yourself back home, with or without your husband, should you not want to leave him with a Tevinter apostate.” 

A small noise at the door, caught both their attentions. The scruffy youth from earlier crept around the edge of the still open front door, his face heavily bruised down one side, and dropped a number of coins back into the bowl. Without a word, Fox caught up with him before he could escape again, brushing a glowing hand over his cheek and handing him one of the loaves of bread off the table.   The boy stared at her, managing a brief smile before scurrying off.

Aveline sighed heavily, still clearly aggravated, looking between the mage looking anywhere but at her and Donnic, who had drifted off again on his cot. “Very well. I need to go adjust the duty roster for the next week anyways. I’ll hold you responsible if anything happens to him.”

“Understood, Guard Captain.” Fox nodded, returning to chopping herbs and mixing potions in between helping the people that began trickling in again. “I really wish Anders hadn’t gone with Hawke. Middle of Summer Flux, and he’s...” she muttered to an almost empty clinic later, taking a moment to survey the half empty potion shelves and depleted supply baskets. She sat next to the workbench and pulled off the large coat, spelling it clean again before running her fingers over the mended slashes across its shoulders and back. If she closed her eyes, she could almost still smell traces of him where the feathered pauldrons had been. 

“You miss him.” Donnic remarked drowsily from his cot, trying to prop himself up again. “The other mage… Your lover?”

“A bit more than that, maybe. At this point, I can’t imagine marrying anyone but him.” The white haired healer stretched, hauling herself back to her feet. “How are you feeling? Any pain or tightness under the scar? Lightheadedness, nausea, fever?” 

“It’s sore, but I wouldn’t call it pain. I feel tired, and weak, like I could sleep for a few more days. And a bit cold.” The guard sat up a bit farther as she strolled over to check on him. “Did I imagine you and Avi having words, earlier?”

“Unfortunately, no. A fundamental difference of opinion, it seems. She seems to  believe in the system, that rules are there to protect people. I lost faith in that a long time ago.” She laid a hand over the scar for a moment, looking distant before she smiled. “After effects from the blood loss and the lingering exhaustion and system shock from major healing, without any sign of infection. More rest and broth, and you should be on your feet in a day or so.”

“That’s good. What… What do you believe in, if not systems and the Chantry?” he asked, watching as she started another kettle of broth and started slicing the sad looking vegetables into a pot. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“No, It’s a reasonable question. I… I believe in the Maker, and I pay at least lip service to following the Imperial Chantry most days. Or I used to, before I came south.  Whether Andraste was his bride and prophet or just a very charismatic and determined mage is unclear, but everything she actually did and said played a part in making the world a better place. What was done later in her name, is being done in her name, does nothing but make life easier for those already in power.”  She poured him another mug of broth, still looking thoughtful. “I believe that power is given to us so we can use it to make the world better, or try to, at least, and that locking away those of us given it because we might misuse that gift, because it may go awry, helps no one.”

“You’re an optimist.” He sighed as he took the mug, and she rearranged what pillows there were to prop him up. “Most of the people the Guard deals with would rather spit in your face than work to make the world a better place, the idiots who jumped Fenris and I among them. It’s why there has to be laws and Guards.”

“Maybe. I know the world isn’t what it could be, what I’d like it to be. But it’s never going to get better if everyone just sighs and decides it is what it is. Anders says evil flourishes when good people do nothing, and those who do nothing in the face of evil are no longer good people.”  It hadn’t exactly been Anders who told her that, but if even half of the scattered memories from behind the mirror were right, Justice was more than fair tossing that one at her. What had been was beyond fixing, but whatever else, this life was a second chance. She would not loll on a throne and watch the world fall apart outside her borders, not again. “It doesn’t take a cynic to see that the system here is broken. Maybe with the right impetus, it could be fixed eventually. Otherwise… I'm pragmatic, not an optimist.” 

 

Aveline came back later that night to sit with Donnic again, and Fox shoved an extra cot against his for her before vanishing into the office. It was nice that this little adventure had given her and Fenris a chance to declare truce, and it was always interesting to see more of the crew Anders ran with. But having guards loose in the clinic was… exhausting. She’d noted a number of her regulars poke their head in and vanish, and that none of the Underground had turned up with news or requests was as much luck as planning. And that beyond the difficulty of choosing her words and keeping her temper as much as possible. The Guard Captain suspected… okay, Aveline pretty much knew that she and Anders were responsible for the rash of dead Templars, but she had no actual proof, with the same applying to their involvement with the more radical actions of the Mage Underground. Put proof in front of her nose, and it might move her to act. The paling would be less helpful if Darktown were flooded with more Templars and Guards than they could fight their way out of, if they were besieged.  She grabbed a loose shirt off the floor and bundled it in with the coat, trying a dozen sleeping positions before going fox and burrowing under the faintly scented fabric.

 

She still hadn’t quite managed to clear the Guardsman enough to justify kicking him back out of her clinic when the sorriest contact the Underground had came slinking around the back door.  She could admit that the knowledge he still had of the Gallows on good days was useful, that having someone willing to smuggle young mages out for a few coins made him an asset to what they were doing, but… 

Pity and the needs of the cause aside, she suspected the single most merciful thing she could do for the former Templar would be dissolving a swift poison into his next drink. He grinned shyly at her from under matted dark hair, his blue eyes unfocused in a way that suggested he’d gotten his hands on dwarf dust in the last week. As useless as the impure dregs of lyrium were for enchanting or potions, it still almost slaked his cravings and pushed back the withdrawal for a little while.  “Pretty healer.” He blinked up at her, fingers clutching at the lintel. “Pretty healer wrapped in the blue. Such perfect, clear blue.”

“Sampson,” she greeted him with a sigh. “I had hoped the last interval… What brings you here this time?” He tipped his head, still fascinated by the lines through her skin, and she rubbed at her temples in irritation before brushing the usual spell over him. His eyes focused on hers a little more, even as his forehead wrinkled in pain, withdrawal symptoms partially suppressed but not gone. “When was the last time you ate or drank anything that wasn’t cheap booze?”

“Uh… before the dust… last week, maybe?” He blinked at her and squinted, rubbing sheepishly at his neck as he slid back into coherence.

“Get in here then,” she told him brusquely, pointing him at a chair before dropping a bowl of thin vegetable stew and a mug of cold water in front of him. “You’re no good to anyone if you don’t at least try to look after yourself,” she grumbled, resisting the urge to dump a bucket of wash water over his head to see how much of the smell it would clear. Fox did allow herself a few subtle spells meant to kill tiny vermin before they spread, though, before she leaned against the wall and watched him dig into the meal with all the grace of a starving dog. 

Going by what the older members of the Underground told her, Raleigh Sampson had been one of the better Templars once. They spoke of someone who had balanced the letter of his duties with a soft touch, someone climbing the ranks of his order without forgetting that the people under his charge were just that, people. And then Meredith Stannard had taken over as Knight Commander, and began punishing anyone she saw as mage sympathizers. Sampson had been caught smuggling love letters for a mage, and been kicked out to the streets with nothing after nearly two decades of service, without the access to the chantry controlled poison they had addicted him to. The sudden withdrawal had finished the job years of lyrium consumption had done to his mind, leaving him this broken beggar, willing to do anything for his next fix or enough drink to take the edge off the pain. 

 If there was ever a perfect example that the Chantry cared for nothing but it’s own power, its ability to use men like he had been, drug them with enough lyrium to slowly destroy their minds, and then throw them away like rubbish when it was done was on the list. Probably well under everything it did to mages though. Sampson had been cast out for the letter incident. The mage had been forced into Tranquility, although when she saw the former Templar on his worst days she wasn’t entirely sure which was crueller. At least the poor Tranquil seemed beyond knowledge of what they had lost. On his good days, the man frantically licking the last traces of broth out of the bowl seemed entirely too aware of how far he had fallen. 

Fox glanced over at her shelves of herbs and distillations, running a brief mental survey of how many of them could be used as a painless poison before she sighed and dismissed the idea again. Just because the last few times she had tried keeping him spelled long enough to get him through the withdrawal had ended with him tracking down more dwarf dust and falling right back into the cycle… With a regretful stare at the bottom of the pot, she dumped the last of the stew into the bowl the moment he set it down, going back to straightening the clinic before he could do more than shoot her a grateful glance. 

“Isn’t that the lyrium addict who hangs around the docks?” Donnic asked, sitting on his cot and reluctantly drinking his broth. “I was under the impression you didn’t take kindly to Templars.“

“I really don’t think he counts anymore, Guardsman.” Fox noted, refilling his mug and glancing back at the older man, who was scarfing the second bowl almost as frantically as the first. She poured herself what tea was left, glanced at the still empty sugar jar, and sat on the edge of the table. “This place is intended as a refuge for the broken and lost, the sick and needy, those without other options. Whatever he once was....” 

Sampson looked up at that, traces of stew covering half of his face, looking back down at the empty bowl with a fair amount of shame. Wiping at his mouth with his ragged, filthy sleeve, he rose, standing awkwardly. “Healer, I… I should go,” he muttered, digging a crumpled note out of his pocket and offering it out to her. “They just asked me to run a message over…”

“It’s raining, topside. Do you have a dry place to sleep for the night?” the small elf asked, taking the note without looking at it. He shook his head, and she sighed, glancing between him and the almost healed guard. With a quick scan of the note he’d brought, she nibbled at her lip, and grabbed a quill off the nearest shelf. She tossed a few jars from a bottom shelf into a basket, with her hastily written reply at the bottom, and scribbled out a short list on another scrap. “Run this back to them, then drop this list off with Tomwise. Bring whatever he can get ready today back, and you can have dinner here, take one of the cots if it’s still raining.” He stared at her for a long moment, his gaze eventually flickering between her and Donnic, and he nodded before taking the basket and dashing off.

“Generous of you.” the guard noted. “You might want to delouse whatever he ends up sleeping on. Does he run errands for you often?”

“When he’s coherent enough, and they don’t involve carrying coin.” Fox remarked with a careless smile at the tousled warrior, who snorted. “You should be able to go home tonight. I don’t see an infection as likely at this point. That said, if you start running a fever in the next month, have excessive nausea or belly aches, or the scar starts actively hurting…”

“Understood. I am grateful for what you did, looking after me, as is Aveline, as unlikely as she is to fully admit it.” He shoved his hair back and glanced around the carefully cleaned room with it’s makeshift supplies, and sighed. “Going by what the Templars claim, I expected to find a den of rebellion and forbidden magic, but this… The only thing I’ve seen here is someone working herself to the bone to make this city better, doing the most she can with what little she has. Someone willing to give up the last of their food to help someone else. I’ll remember that, next time they try to send us hunting after you.”

“Given how often she scolds me for skipping meals, I hope she didn’t hand off too many of hers.” A voice fondly remarked from the door. Fox lit up, rushing into Anders’ arms as he dropped his pack to catch her. “Maker, I’ve missed you, love,” he whispered, burying his face in her hair before she tilted her face up for a kiss. “Did you miss me?”

“Since about five minutes after you left, Amatus.” She laughed, arms still around her lover’s neck as Donnic made his excuses and sidled out. “There’s a group heading out of the city tonight, unless plans change from whenever they sent Sampson with the note. I promised I’d be there later and sent supplies back. What supplies that didn’t look suspicious, at any rate, given the guest I still had,” she informed him, when the clinic was clear.

Anders nuzzled at her neck, breathing in the familiar scent. “So no mana potions, not that we can get the supplies for those very often anyways. You look so tired, love, are you sure…” He brushed a hand over her cheek worriedly, unwilling to let go. 

“I’ll nap if you can handle the clinic for the rest of the day. It’s been a number of long days and longer nights, that’s all.  And I wouldn’t have sent lyrium based anything out with Sampson, even on one of his good days.” He pressed another kiss to her forehead, and she shifted, scrambling to his shoulder, half burrowing under the dark feathered edge of his coat before nosing at the back of his neck. The blond chuckled at that, moving carefully as he tossed his pack into their office and surveyed his domain. He had no idea how she managed to keep the clinic this clean while running it alone without draining herself into a coma, other than the Justice confirmed fact that she was Somniari, and thus stupid powerful even before the extra connection to the fade the lyrium gave her. He had scrubbed the clinic down once or twice on his better days, the ones where he had the energy to conquer the world. It had always fallen back into grime and muck a few days after he’d crashed back down. Admittedly, regular meals and not waking up in a mess he didn’t have the energy to deal with had made a significant difference in managing the swings that used to rule his life. And the more he and Justice settled into the merge properly, the more it seemed to level out. There had still been more than one day over the last couple years when he’d crashed hard enough that Fox had just patted his shoulder, ordered him back to sleep, and run the clinic herself.

Without really thinking about it, he reached up, rubbing affectionately at her fluffy ears. She twitched slightly before going more limp across his shoulders, and he realized she was already asleep. Their bed was still covered in a heap of his tunics and the coat she had fixed and appropriated, and he grinned slightly, toying with the thin braid of white hair wrapped around his staff. “It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who can’t sleep alone anymore,” he murmured. “Next time Hawke proposes an out of town adventure, I’ll try to say no.”

The warm weight was comforting around the back of his neck, easily as much as the number of people trickling in who greeted his return enthusiastically. ‘Healer Fox’ was popular, and slightly more capable at some things than he was, but he was still ‘the Healer’, with almost two years longer dealing with these people. And as nice as it might have been to just sit and try not to think about everything that could have gone worse at the Chateau, settling straight back into the clinic routine was calming.


	21. The Underground

Later that night, with a successful underground run behind them and a regrettably useful lyrium addict settled onto the oldest of the cots for the night, Anders sprawled over their bed, tracing along the edges of Fox’s face almost wonderingly. “Two years, and I’m still not sure how I deserve you,” he whispered.  He felt her hand press against his, and her eyes blinked slowly at him, reflecting the little light in their room luminously. 

“You’re giving me a second chance, vhenan, a chance to try to make things… maybe not right but better. The more I remember…” She trailed her fingers lightly down his arms, flickers from her brands matching the blue light just under his skin. “I won’t become that again, won’t let things get that bad.”

“You are already far better than you were, Firefox,” he assured her quietly, the blue rings around his eyes glowing faintly as it bled into the rest of his iris. “That you continue risking yourself in the tunnels for the Underground… That you are willing to stay in this clinic in these conditions alone is proof you are not the spoiled child you once were, little fox,” he noted with a note of amusement, running his still glowing hand over the runes down her spine as she started to bristle slightly.

With a soft snort, she relaxed into the caress, cupping the side of his face. “That… is one of the most apt descriptions of what I was, my heart. Of what any of us were, really. Spoiled children playing with powers even we didn’t entirely grasp the potential of, throwing tantrums every time things didn’t go our way, breaking toys on a whim… destroying people, without a second thought.” Fox trembled a little as she spoke, pressing her face into his chest as he coiled long fingers into her hair, against her back. 

“You did, and that cannot ever properly be made right. But you will help these people, now, you will help us make this right.” He kissed the top of her head, the palm of her hand where it still cradled his cheek. “Before our joining, Anders was... flighty, at times, and when we came to Kirkwall, I disliked the idea of anything more distracting us from our duty.  Hawke made himself a distraction, somehow even more after he rejected us for the Tevinter. A distraction opposed to any of our cause that endangered his well being, that upset what routine we had managed in favor of dragging us along to help his goals.” The glowing hand on her back carded its way through her hair, the other sliding slowly over the markings on her hips. “And then we found you, lost to yourself as you were, and you were far more distracting. But you set yourself to our cause with the slightest encouragement, and did so ably. Anders is.. We are steadier with you here, more focused.”

“At risk of ruining the moment, you were living in filth and barely remembering to eat when I moved in.” Fox noted, running her hand up into his hair and tugging his head down into a kiss. He made a faint grumbling sound against her mouth, but didn’t disagree, nuzzling along her jaw to the base of her ear. “But I like looking after you, beloved. I like that you need me as much as I need you…” Her voice trailed off into a whine as he licked up the edge of her ear, more brown swirling back into his eyes.  “Ar lath ma, vhenan,” she panted, the tips of her hair sparking.

“The idea that someone like you needs me, sweetheart,” he breathed against her neck, and caught the tip of her ear between his teeth, “loves me enough to stay here in this mess, when we both know you could go back to Tevinter any time you wanted, go back to being who you were…” He felt her shudder, her breath catching, and slid his long fingers up the markings along the inside of her thigh, letting her push herself against his hand as his other hand curled around the back of her neck.  “You are everything I have ever wanted, Fox. Clever, sweet, talented, gorgeous….” he crooned, nuzzling at her ear again. 

“Keep talking like that, it will go to my head, and Justice will have to spend hours lecturing me back into sense,” she warned, tipping her head to capture his mouth for a long, hungry kiss. “You are mine and I am yours, and none of the rest matters, Amatus.”

“We don’t mind lecturing,” he chuckled, eyes flickering more blue as he pressed his forehead against hers. “We keep you as steady as you keep us, but I missed you, little fox. I need to know that you know how I feel about you.” His fingers slid inside where she was pressing insistently against his hand, and he kissed her again, swallowing the noises she made as he flexed his fingers inside her. “Let me look after you for a little bit, love.”

 

The former Templar shot them a look as they left their office the next morning, something that might be wistful or accusatory or both under the withdrawal haze. His gaze dropped fast enough when he noticed the look on Anders’ face, and the human healer snorted under his breath. Sampson was useful enough, when he was coherent, always desperate for coin and filled with spite for the Chantry that had broken him and tossed him aside like nothing. Anders could sympathize with that, and he would never say anything about Fox’s alternating attempts to either fix him or feed him like a stray mongrel. But underneath whatever loyalty a common goal and Fox’s goodwill bought them, a Templar was a Templar, and a lyrium addict remained a lyrium addict. If the Chantry offered him a chance back on his measured daily dose, he would turn in the names of every Underground mage he knew in a heartbeat.

Because of the clinic, everyone already knew who he and Fox were, their safety already reliant on the good will of the people they helped and the paling Fox and Merrill had thrown up after the Karras incident. He worried about the others using the addict as a resource, but beyond warning them to be careful about who knew they were a mage, there was little he could do. Fox headed out for a much needed resupply, and Anders casually dug into his pack from the trip, looking for a particular pocket. 

He let a few shimmeringly blue drops trickle into the mug of cold water, and dropped it in front of the other man without a word. Sampson took a cautious sip, then gulped at the liquid. Before he could do more than attempt a grateful smile, Anders waved him off. “I had a bit of potion left from the trip, and I don’t know Fox’s trick of suppressing symptoms.” With an engaging smile he dosed another mug of spell iced water with more of the lyrium, setting it on the table. “You’ve been helpful lately, and there’s no sense leaving you to suffer when I have a bit of extra lyrium on hand.”

 

Fox made it back to the clinic with the supplies by mid morning, just in time to help with the end of the early crowd. Anders pulled her close when it quieted, kissing her soundly with a hand in her hair, ignoring the whistles from some of the old dock workers still lurking. “Hello yourself,” she laughed when he pulled back, the tips of her ears pinking.

“Just making sure you know I love you,” he chuckled, taking the basket of supplies. “I’ve been informed that leaving pretty girls alone for long is a good way to lose them,” he added, with a pointed look over at one grizzled, stocky man, who looked away sheepishly. 

“So you think I’m pretty?” she asked, batting suddenly wide eyes at him. “Why, Ser Healer, I might get any kind of ideas if you keep talking like…” With a wide grin, he shifted his grip on the basket, leaning over to kiss her again. The oldest of the gaggle of children coming through the door gagged dramatically, in the eternal manner of six year olds forced to witness adults kissing. The healers pulled apart, Anders strolling off to put the herbs away as Fox smiled at the young elves. “Little Kally! No broken arms today?” 

“‘eala’ Fox!” A tiny ginger form catapulted herself around her sister and latched firmly onto the elven mage’s skirt with one arm, the other currently bound to her side. “I fell out of the tree! It hurt.” An even tinier blur of similar colors attached itself to her other side.

“Meeka tried to climb the Vhenadahl, Rella’s got spots, and the baby’s been coughing a lot,” the dark blond six year old informed the healer gravely, before holding out her own bandaged wrist. “And I punched Jack for callin’ us knifeeared.”  Their mother made her slower entrance, smiling wearily at the beleaguered mage, a six month old baby fussing in her arms.

“Jack the blacksmith’s son? I’m not surprised you managed to hurt your hand on his thick skull.” Fox noted, petting the toddlers clinging to her before reaching out to examine the girl’s wrist. “Easily mended though. Tara, I see you’re having a long week,” she remarked to the elven woman, trying not to frown when she noticed the beginnings of a swell to her stomach.

“Every week it seems, Healer,” Tara sighed. “I’m beyond grateful that we can come to you, but I do wish I didn’t need to come so often.” She handed the baby over to Fox as it began coughing, digging a wrapped loaf of bread out of a satchel and setting it on the table. 

The healer brushed a glowing finger along the baby’s cheek,  humming and bouncing a bit as it settled in her arms and the coughing ceased, still smiling down at the four and two year olds tugging at her skirts. “But if you weren’t here all the time, how would I learn who Kally has punched or what new words Rella learned? And to think of going without that nutbread of yours.”

The weary blonde took her youngest back with a snort, smiling ruefully at her brood. “Any time you’d like to borrow one or a pair, feel free to drop by.” 

“Some days I’m half tempted to take you up on that.” Anders commented, and Meeka leapt to grab one handed at his coat. “Been trying to climb trees like your big sister?” he asked, crouching to examine her arm. 

“I don’t know how many of them I’d have if you weren’t there, Healer.” Tara shuffled her feet, glancing back at where Kally was excitedly showing something to an apparently fascinated Fox, as the no longer spotted two year old scrambled up her shoulders. “I… I am worried about Kally, though. How do you tell....” She shifted the baby in her arms, staring at the ground. “Some of the older elves in the alienage think she might be a mage, and I don’t know… I always sleep with embrium under my pillow when I know I’m expecting, but…”

“Embrium? Tara, that old wives tale… Well, that’s one of the more harmless ones. If you start looking for leeches and Chantry blessed rags… None of those superstitions work, Tara. I should know, my father believed in all of them,” Anders muttered, a hand protectively over Meeka’s shoulder. “At best, you’ll make her sick, at worst…”

“Shana from two houses down said I should hold her under water for a little bit, that if the magic was still weak it would die before she would,” the wheat blonde elven woman mumbled, unwilling to look at the mages or her children as she said it.  Both the healers froze, staring at her icily. “Darin kicked her out of our house just for saying it. But if there was a chance she could live life without the Templars hunting her…”

“It… It never works like that, Tara. Kally does have latent magic, but most elves do. She’s still too young to tell whether it will stay that way, so unless you’ve seen actual magic…” Fox remarked, carefully standing back up with Rella still on her shoulders, holding her hair like reins. “I know I can’t stop you worrying, but it’s far too soon for drastic action.  If you really want, drop Kally by the clinic for a couple hours once a week or so, and I’ll teach her basic meditation. Should she develop magic, it’s the first step to control, if she doesn’t it’s still good practice at focusing.” 

“You’d do that? Thank you. Darin says if she does have magic we should either take her to the clan here or move in with his old clan, but… If I thought I could handle living in the dirt, on the road all the time, I would have agreed to join his clan to begin with. He knew before we wed that having me meant living in town like civilized people, and…” The baby started fussing again, and Tara focused on her youngest again, long enough for the mages to share an expressive look. “When would the best day to start sending her for lessons?”

“Any day the clinic is open should work, really. We’ll figure out what works best as we go along.” Anders hugged the four year old reassuringly before gently nudging her back in the direction of her mother. “And tell anyone else with worries like that the offer is open to their children as well, before they start listening to Shana.”  He scooped Rella off Fox’s shoulders, bouncing her up in the air briefly before handing her back to her mother as well. Kally took her sisters’ hands, after a reluctant glance back at Fox, and Tara headed home.

 

The moment she was out of sight and the clinic was quiet, he slammed a blue glowing fist into the wall, a string of muttered curses just audible. “Superstitious, hypocritical, Maker damned…”

“Bright side, she came and talked to us about her fears instead of fetching the Templars or actually trying to drown the magic out of… Its a start, beloved.” Fox chewed on her lip a moment, then tucked herself under his arm, leaning in enough to get him to hug her close. 

Anders sighed, burying his face into her hair for a moment. “I know that. I just… Five years. I’ve been working with these people for five years, trying to get them to see that magic isn’t a curse, and some of them would still rather see their own children dead than mages. It.. It hurts, Fox.” 

“Oh, amatus.  You can’t change generations of prejudice in an instant, but we are making a difference. You are making a difference.” She nuzzled softly at his collarbone, fingers curling into the worn linen of his shirt. “We’re the face of the Underground, the good examples people keep in mind. The reason people around here hesitate before telling the Templars anything.” 

“I think a fair number of them hesitate before talking to Templars because they report to Meredith, who is a paranoid fucking lunatic keeping the city in an iron fist,” the lean blond noted with another sigh, wrapping her braid around his hand. “But you have a point. Some people have started thinking of us as people, not monsters to be shunned without thought, to be cast away…” 

“One step at a time. The more mages manage to live in peace with their neighbors, the more they know us, the harder it is for the Chantry to demonize the idea of free mages. The Underground is working, slowly but surely.” Tracing idle circles over his chest, she smiled sweetly up at him, before a thought occurred to her and her smile faltered. “When we get the Gallows shut down and the mages out of there, do we have any plans for the mage children whose families don’t want them back right away?”

He exhaled sharply, fingers tightening in  her hair. “I hadn’t… There will be some, no matter what we...Maker.”   He rested his forehead against hers, closing his eyes. “There will be families like… like mine, who think mage children are a curse, a sign of the Maker’s anger to be gotten rid of as fast as possible. Like my father did, when he realized what I was.” He leaned against the wall and let himself slide to the ground, hand still gripping Fox’s braid as she curled into his lap comfortingly. “He sent for the Templars before the barn finished burning, and I was gone before the ashes were cold,” He remarked, dull toned. “He wouldn’t even… I stopped being his son the moment he knew, I was dead to him. Mother… She said goodbye, at least. She packed me a bag of clothes and such to take with, with a loaf of sweetbread on top, and ran after the Templars to make sure I got it. That little pillow I still have was hers.”

“I’m sorry, my heart. I’m so sorry.” She murmured, as he wrapped his arms around her, petting at the length of her silvery braid like a cat’s tail. 

“It’s not like… I knew how he felt about magic. I knew he’d be upset when he learned… I figured out that I could do things when I was eight. I managed to heal one of the barn cats, kept some of the livestock alive in bad winters, but I was careful to hide it. I managed to hide it for four years until the barn incident, and that was…” He laughed a little, even as she felt dampness against the top of her head. “I was careless. It was the old barn, and I’d snuck a friend from the village up into the hayloft. There was kissing, and I lost control for a moment, and the straw caught. That’s how Father knew it wasn’t a lantern or something mundane that burned the barn, that it was sparks from my hands. Benji told him, screamed it at me before he ran home.”

“The dangers of first love?” Fox lightly teased, arms around his neck and tracing lines over his shoulders. “You were twelve. Twelve year olds are prone to bad judgement. It wasn’t your fault, Amatus. The fact you managed to hide it for that long without training…”

“ I think mother knew, or at least suspected, but… The last thing she ever said to me was that my magic, that my healing was a gift, not a curse, and I was to remember that.”  He sniffed a bit, flexing his shoulders before smiling wanly at his lover. “I wasn’t exactly an only child. I know I’d had siblings, but they all died young, before I was even born.  All three of them accidentally drowned in the shallow pond behind the orchard, between the ages of six and eight.”

“That’s… Ouch. Again, I am so sorry, love.”  Fox brushed a tear from his cheek, still holding him tightly. “I love you. You are the most amazing person I know, Anders, and the idea of your family just…” His hand in her hair slid upwards, pulling her in for a long kiss.

“That helps. You being you, here with me. I can tell you these things, and I know you won’t… I know so many mages who had it worse than I did, but it still helps that I can tell you all this, that you never tire of listening to me. About the Tower, my family, the endless evil of Templars… You are always on my side, on Justice’s side, and I don’t know what I would do without you.” He grinned at her a little, as she shifted her weight on his lap. “This city might drive me mad if I didn’t have someone to look after me.”

“I’m pretty sure this city is designed to drive people mad, Vhenan,” the slim healer snorted, pressing up to kiss him again. “But our personal neurosis aside, please tell me I’m not the only one debating the merits of  a little constructive child stealing right now.”

“No, the idea occurred to me as well. I’d like to think Darin would take all the girls back to his clan by himself if Tara started taking Shana’s advice, though. He’s always struck me as having a fairly good head on his shoulders, and he loves his children. Admitted to me on the way over from Ferelden that he mainly chose Tara over his clan because she was already pregnant.”  He cupped his long fingered hands under the edge of her ass, squeezing a little as he kissed her again, tenderly. “You are always amazing with the kids that come into the clinic, sweet heart, I only wish…”

“Someday, when we’ve fixed the world, or done our best at it, we’ll retire. With all the unwanted mage kids and at least twenty cats, in a nice cottage somewhere in Tevinter, running a quiet rural clinic.” She smirked as he snorted, smiling wistfully at her. “A clinic that is located nowhere near old mine tunnels or sewers, mind you.”

“I like that dream, love. I might hold you to that, someday.” He regretfully let her up off his lap, taking the hand she offered back to his own feet.


	22. Rasanis

As much as he loved his Fox, there was still something for the idea of occasionally having the clinic to himself. Anders straightened the stack of salves he had been working on, and tilted back his chair, feet on the table.  His little, more or less Tevinter lover had taken herself off to Merrill’s for the evening, to poke and prod at the broken artifact they swore they were making progress at fixing. Thus allowing him the evening to leisurely restock the potions, rearrange his notes, and relax. 

Just as well, as she’d been… odd when he got back from his resupply run. Odd, slightly snippy, and disinclined to discuss whatever the issue was before heading out to the alienage. None of which was like her, not with their usual habit of telling each other everything and figuring life out from there. As difficult as being honest about parts of his past was, having someone who knew the worst of it was… freeing.

  Fox knew about his family, about the cursed years in the tower, the endless doomed escape attempts and the interminable void that was his year in solitary. He didn’t think he’d have been able to speak of that as he had, even to her, if they hadn’t been curled together under the blankets, hiding from the winter rains with mugs of mulled Wintersend mead.  She was the only person outside his parents, if they still lived, that knew he had ever been anyone but Anders, about the Anderfells boy who refused to give his real name to anyone in the circle. Maker only knew how little even he thought of his old name, his old life, anymore. Although she was in a similar position, he supposed. Even if she wanted to go back to being Halisa, she had the same problems going back to Tevinter as Fenris would, leaving aside the complications her past before Tevinter raised. 

Despite the knowledge on that slice of history increasingly leaking through as the line between human and spirit blurred, he tried not to think about that very often. He was fine knowing she was decidedly more powerful than he was, with talent at some healing tricks.  He liked the fact she was at least as old as he was, even if she looked younger than Merrill or Carver. He could handle the fact she admitted to having made massive mistakes in the past, mistakes that had hurt people and let other people do horrible things. She was remorseful, she meant to do better, to make things better, and was doing so in a way Justice clearly approved of, beyond whatever penance the last decade being tortured under Danarius counted for.

What his mind frequently shied away from was the idea of exactly how old she was, what she had once been, and the idea that someone like that would have any interest in someone like him.  Merrill’s little stories about the Creators were cute, but… Fox was real. If she was what Justice believed she was, he wasn’t sure what that said about everything he had ever been told, about what little of the chantry’s teachings he still trusted in.  “My girlfriend the elven goddess,” he muttered to himself, absently.

“Ah, so you are aware of who she actually is. I wondered about that,” a low alto voice remarked, from close behind him. Anders startled, ending sprawled at the feet of the tall elf watching him, his legs still tangled in the chair. “Oh, don’t mind me. I was trying to figure out what exactly Sylaise sees in you to keep her here, and I just can’t understand it.”  They were almost as tall as Anders himself, lean and dark braided, with golden flames tattooed around the icy grey eyes currently watching the mage scramble back to his feet.  

“What.. How did… Who the void are you?” the blond healer demanded, the moment he managed to get back upright. “Why are you here?”

“I just told you why,  _ felasil _ .” The elf sat on the edge of the table, still watching Anders like he was an interestingly colored bug crawling over a dinner plate. “Rasanis, High Keeper of Sylaise, First among her servants. Her occasional fondness for blondes aside, you aren’t her type. She usually goes for muscle bound, pretty, and biddable, whichever side she’s chasing.” They made a show of looking the thin mage in worn, stained clothes up and down, sneering slightly as he rubbed at his stubbled cheek. “You must be something amazing in bed for her to make such a pet out of you, because it can’t have been your looks,  _ shemlen _ .”

Anders bristled at that, hands fisting as more blue seeped into his eyes. “She is not the same as she was, Sentinel. You would do well to remember that.”

“Ah.  _ Era’elgar _ . With Justice, then? That does explain a little of why she tolerates a  _ shemlen _ , and a great deal of why you apparently expect her to live like a stray dog in a sewer.” Rasanis shrugged, idly toying with a blade against the wooden table. “Speaking of which…”

“Somehow I suspect I won’t like whatever is about to come out of your mouth any more than I have the rest of it, Sentinel.” The mage moved the stack of salves to a shelf across the room. “Does the Firefox know you’re here?”

“I spoke to her earlier, but… Well, she has always been sentimental about her pets while they last. You understand that she has to come back to the Temple, correct? That she has far more important tasks before her than skipping around a sewer and playing with the gutterwhelps you’ve surrounded yourself with?” The Sentinel dug the knife deeper into the wood, carving a curling design. “If you don’t like my view on things, I know a number of the other Sentinels you’re going to want to avoid entirely if she decides to bring you home.”

“If she chooses to return to her place in the Temple, she and I will discuss what place I have at her side then. At the moment, there is no greater task than attempting to secure justice for the mages, in this place above others.” the human retorted, examining the contents of the shelves. A great deal of Fox’s earlier mood was becoming comprehensible, if this... charmer had been here earlier. He doubted that even her First had managed to convince her to abandon the mage cause entirely to return to her old life so quickly, but… 

“For you perhaps. For her… I did mention her tendency to sentimental decisions about her pets.” Rasanis rolled their eyes, heaving a sigh as they carved more of their name into the table.  “She does not belong living here in filth, no matter how attached you are to whatever game you’re playing. I…” The elf tipped their head, studying the human mage. “The cause of the mages? I’m assuming the cowering idiots in the old slave pens, guarded by the lyrium addicts in platemail?”  At Ander’s nod, they smiled darkly. “How much would it assist that little cause of yours, Justice, if the lyrium addicts’ top bitch turned up with a dagger in her heart? Or fell tragically from the top of that pretty human temple, your choice?”

“Meredith’s death would benefit this entire city. If it suited you to help us, that would be an amazing gift, Rasanis.” The thin blond turned, watching the ancient elf hopefully.

“I don’t really do gifts, _ Era’elgar _ . I do believe in fair deals, though. Send Sylaise home to our temple, and I’ll kill the Templar bitch for you. Send her home without your sorry hide trailing at her heels, and I’ll make sure none of the Templars see the next morning.” The Sentinel shadow studied the knife they held for a moment, examining the mage’s reflected expression.

“You think I have that much control over her decisions? Either she’ll decide that she wants to go back to being an  _ Evanuris _ , or she won’t. Telling her it would mean the Knight Captain’s death might get her to leave the city with you, though.” He busied himself straightening the shelf, trying to hide the trembling in his fingers. 

“Shockingly, it didn’t, which leaves me trying to deal with you,” the elf snapped, digging the knife back into the table. “She didn’t want to leave you behind, because, as I’ve said, she’s always been the most sentimental of the  _ Evanuris _ . So, I need you to convince her to leave. Scream at her. Have a horrible falling out, kick her out of this shithole you consider a home. Hurt her badly enough she’ll run home to us, and I’ll give you anything.” Anders stared at him, some of the blue fading back out of his eyes, and the dark haired elf heaved another sigh. “She’ll cry for a bit about the unfairness of it, sulk for a while, and then we’ll drop something shiny in her lap, and she’ll move on. I have a lot of practice dealing with emotional  _ Evanuris _ , and this one in particular. If I use a trinket shiny enough, life can get back to normal without her killing more than a couple younger Sentinels out of hand in the tantrum stage.”

“You intend for her to go back to the way she was,” the mage realized, shaking his head. “Back to the spoiled child with power your people worshipped, that you could manage into fulfilling your plans. No, Sentinel, I will not be part of this.”

“That‘s a little harsh.” Rasanis noted, blinking. “Sylaise is one of the far more reasonable of our Magelords. And I wouldn’t call what I do so much managing…”

“Because if you said something like that to my face, I might have actually killed you, instead of threatening to.” Fox remarked from the back door. “Ras, I distinctly remember telling you I wasn’t going back and kicking you out of the clinic. Tell the others to go find something productive to do with their lives. I won’t cut anyone out of the power web unless they ask me to, but I won’t… I can’t be what I was for you, Smoke-to-my-fire.” She strolled in, dropping a small bag of fruit on a table.  “It would be nice if you still killed that bitch out of whatever goodness might be in your heart, but we’ll deal with her eventually.”

“Hey, Fox love.” Anders called, the smile she turned on him warming some of the ice that had built in his belly as the Sentinel had spoken. “How was Merrill’s?”

“Much the same as usual,  _ vhenan _ . I am sorry for earlier, I just needed… I needed enough time to think, after themself turned up.” She hurried to him, sliding her hands up into his hair as he bent to kiss her, both firmly ignoring the grumbling elf behind them. “I would rather be a fugitive with you, than a mage queen alone, my heart,” she whispered, and he rested his forehead against hers a moment longer. 

“Because I’m good enough in bed to make up for not being your preferred sort of pet?” he asked lightly, looking pointedly at Rasanis when she blinked at him.

“ Oh, for the… Get out, Rasanis. Consider your welcome wherever I am revoked. The answer was no this afternoon, and it hasn’t changed.” She patted her human on the cheek fondly, flicking one moderately irritated look back at the glaring Sentinel.  

“I only… As you wish, Lady Sylaise. I suppose Nydmisa can’t ruin the Temple that much more over the next couple decades. He is only  _ shemlen _ ,and we can wait,” they remarked, and vanished silently back out before she could do more than lightly drum her fingers against Ander’s cheek.

“If I had realized they planned to come back here, I wouldn’t have left you alone. I’m sorry,  _ Amatus _ . Ras… They were one of the closest things I had to a friend, but… they like dripping poison, and I always found their venom amusing enough not to check it,” she apologized.  “Don’t… You matter to me, my heart. That you aren’t one of the pretty, brainless things I used to play with…” She traced along the sharp edges of his jaw with its constant stubble, the thin lips and the long nose, staring up into the blue ringed eyes. “You are you, and I love you.” He kissed her again, trying to push the elf’s comments back out of his mind, the deal he had been offered. 

“I love you, Fox.”  He brushed his lips along her pointed chin, the sharp features that called to mind an elegant northern cat or a fennec fox.  “It’s fine, love. There have been far worse things in my life than being considered the pet of a beautiful goddess.”

“That's actually the first time you’ve used that word, as dubiously accurate as it is,” she murmured, fingers sliding under his coat.

“You are part of the basis of a religion, one thriving despite the Chantry’s attempts to eradicate it. It fits, as much as I think not worshipping one’s lover is asking for trouble.” He tangled his hand into the tumbled ends of her hair, holding her close. “As nice as it would have been to have our Templar problems headless… If they enviegled you back into playing the old games again…”

“I would have forgotten all the lessons being mortal taught me in short order, even shorter without you, without anyone there to back me in trying not to fuck up,” she agreed, dropping her gaze. “I could have…. I could have used the bond to force them into doing it anyways, but… even for a good reason, that idea feels…”

“If we have to resort to mind control, I think much of our cause is beyond hope, beloved.” He tapped the end of her nose softly. “We are doing this to free the slaves and prisoners the Chantry is making of the mages, not create more out of magic.”

“I know. I… It’s difficult, some days. I have to remember that supporting the Underground is doing more for our kindred in the Gallows right now than anything I could do on my own. But the more I reclaim my old power, what of it is left after so long locked away, what I can use despite the Veil… The more I hear of the abuses in the Gallows, the way it’s being ignored by everyone with the legal authority to stop it…” She bit her lip, and he cupped his hand around her jaw, rubbing his thumb over her cheek.

“Those authorities that aren’t already complicit in the abuse to begin with,” he muttered. “If we get enough support from the rest of Kirkwall, maybe we can get the Grand Cleric to force the Knight Commander into line, call a Seeker of Truth who won’t turn a blind eye… It won’t fix the real problems, but if they at least enforced what few laws and standards the Templars are supposed to uphold…”

“It would end the rape, most of the beatings, and the retalitory executions and Tranquility for anyone objecting to the abuse. It will be a start. If the mages here are given enough room to breathe without fear, it would give them less reason to seek alternative methods to get enough power to protect themselves, give them more reason to value their own lives over what pretty lies and spite the demons offer.” Toying with the dark feathers that topped the shoulders of his coat, she pressed a soft kiss to the palm against her cheek. “It would be something. Maybe when they realize that terrified, trapped mages are more dangerous than ones left to their own devices…maybe…  If the chantry doesn’t… There will be open war someday, all the sooner for all this. As things stand… One of the history instructors at Carastes Circle told us the most dangerous thing in the world is someone with nothing to lose.”

“That about sums up the place of mages in this city. The only thing most of them have left to lose is their lives.” Anders agreed. “If we can at least convince more people that the mages aren’t the problem here first… It will help. And there are a couple people in the Chantry who are trying… Ser Thrask is helping where he can, and he’s got some of the older Templars listening, at least. There is still hope here, as long as we keep trying.”


	23. Super secret warden magic

“Anders?” the grey warden they had been sent to find called in surprise, lowering his bow.

“Making friends as always, I see,” the healer grinned at the dark haired archer. “Don’t tell me this is where they transferred you to.”

“The first Warden wanted me to look into something. I just can’t escape you, can I?” Nate teased, slinging his bow back over his shoulder. “What brings you of all people into the Deep Roads?”

“I’m special that way,” the mage retorted. “Delilah came pleading to the Champion of Kirkwall to find her poor lost brother, and somehow I got dragged along to keep this lot in line. Again.”

Behind the Wardens, Hawke and Fenris glanced at each other before the stocky mage stepped forward. “You volunteered both times, you…” Gerry protested, glaring at the smirking blond. “Ass. I can’t believe I ever thought you were cute enough to flirt with,” he muttered, as the dwarf at his side snorted and the lanky elf rolled his eyes. 

“Yes well, the first time you asked me into the Deep Roads, I thought it meant something to you,” Anders remarked dramatically, hand over his heart. “Turned out, all you wanted was a tour guide for your romantic stroll with your green eyed brooder. Not that I can’t understand losing your heart to a pretty Tevinter elf,” he added, running his fingers along the braid of silvery hair wrapped around the top of his staff.

“Shut up.” Hawke grumbled, glancing back at Fenris and flushing awkwardly. “Uh, you’d be Nathaniel Howe, then?  Your sister is looking for you, as you might have gathered. I’m Gerard Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall, and this is Varric Tethras and Fenris, once of Tevinter. Clearly, you already know Anders.”

“Unfortunately,” Nate shrugged, even as he smirked over at the blond, who chuckled. “You’d be Warden Carver’s brother, then? He speaks about you a great deal, if in less than glowing terms.”

Gerry made a face at that, and Varric laughed. “You’ll have to excuse Snowflake for that. He’s not used to Junior having a shadow at all, let alone being in it. How’s the kid doing, anyway? We haven’t heard much from him since Blondie talked some wandering wardens into rescuing him.”

“Well enough, I hope. I ended up separated from the expedition when the darkspawn attacked, but they were all still intact last I saw them.” Nate straightened his quiver, heading deeper into the caverns.

 

Deeper into  the deep roads, Anders dropped back by Nate, letting the others get farther ahead. “How much have you heard about what went on at the Keep since they transferred you?” he asked quietly.

“Enough to worry, about you and the others,” Howe replied in the same tone, watching the other Warden measuringly out of the corner of his eye as he checked the tunnels.

“They made me get rid of Ser Pounce-a-lot. Said he made me too soft. I wasn’t even bringing him along on patrols any more, he was staying in my room.”  Anders stared off into the darkness, hearing the footsteps next to him falter slightly. “And we lost Sigrun, not long after you left. She didn’t even… She left in the middle of the night and we didn’t even find the note until morning.”

“Sigrun?” Nate winced, looking away and rubbing the back of his neck. “Damn. I had hoped… Nevermind. There are rumors going around the Wardens, about you and Justice.”

The blond mage sighed, eyes going noticeably bluer even in the dim torchlight. “That has not gone exactly as planned, no. But it is what it is, Howe.”

“Ah. I suppose it was too much to ask that in any combination of the two of you that Justice end up the dominant personality,” the dark haired Ferelden noted dryly. “Of the two of you, he’s the one I’d miss first. Also the one I’d more expect to find wandering the Deep Roads willingly. Or underground at all without a screaming fit.” 

“Come off it, that only happened the first…um, several... times.”Anders retorted with a harsh bark of rueful laughter  “If I’d been warned that being a Warden involved routine treks into dark, confined spaces…”  

“And yet, here you are, without a whimper or a touch of sweat,” Nate murmured, studying the other man closely in the torchlight, noticing the hints of blue clearly visible around the dark brown irises. “Can we attribute your new equanimity to Justice’s influence?”

“I spend more time underground than not these days, Nate. Between the Clinic and… well, between that and everything else… I’ve gotten used to it. Darktown is… It’s like nothing in Ferelden, really.  It’s more like… remember the dwarven city, and how Sigrun used to talk about the part of it she grew up in? That, but with humans and elves and patches of poisonous gas.” He cracked his shoulders, bracing with his staff for a moment. “It’s where most of the refugees from home still are.”

“I’ve heard parts of the north are still struck by famine where the worst of the horde lingered, where things aren’t growing right. The aftermath of a blight is never pretty, but… The last one was dealt with faster than the others. Ferelden will recover.” the archer rubbed at his neck again, awkwardly. “Not in our lifetimes, I suppose, but eventually.”

“I’d almost forgotten about that,” Anders murmured, more to himself than anyone else. “I haven’t even had those nightmares since Justice moved in. I’d started to let myself believe I could put being a Warden behind me, or try to.” Nate was side-eying him again, and he shot him an Anders patented ‘Life is too short to be serious’ smile, one he hadn’t used in years. “Apart from the whole can’t get anyone pregnant thing, and our amazing stamina of course. I’ll keep those.”

“I wouldn’t think you’d need to worry too much about the first. You have to get a girl before you have to worry about getting her pregnant,” Nate remarked, as they caught up with the others. 

“Blondie has one of those, even if none of us understand how,” Varric laughed, and the healer gave him and the other Warden both sour looks before he and Nate looked up, pivoting to deal with the approaching darkspawn.

“Hey, Fox? I brought a friend home for dinner.” Anders called, the lanterns brightening as he and Nate stepped through the front door.  A silver striped cat looked over at them from a table and yawned, stretching dramatically. Nate chuckled,shaking his head. Trust Anders to not only have found another cat, but to… The cat blurred, shimmering slightly to leave a short, delicately built elven woman in its place. Long silvery white hair tumbled over sharp, fine, features, and a lithe form barely concealed under patched clothing.

“Oh, you lucky…” Nate whistled, as Anders snorted, stepping forward to help her back off the table. The blond wrapped his arms around her slender shoulders, grinning smugly at his old friend. “You would take up with another mage. And a lovely elven one at that.”

“Nate, this is my Foxfire. Halisa Altim, of Carastes Circle in Tevinter. Fox, love, this is Nathaniel Howe. We were Wardens together under Commander Amell.” He pressed a fond kiss behind one of her large, out set ears, still grinning.

“An absolute pleasure to meet you, my lady,”  the noble born Warden remarked with a deep bow, one she acknowledged regally with a nod. “As someone who has met and fought beside this scapegrace, let me assure you he does not in any way deserve you, especially with how well you fit the description of his dream girl. A pretty, elven, Tevinter trained mage.”  Nate leaned back against the wall, shaking his head as Anders wavered between amusement and annoyance. “Anders, if you end up ‘accidentally’ sleeping with this one’s sister like you did what’s her name, Namaya, let me know ahead of time so I have a chance to console her,” he added, teasingly.

“We would not!” Anders yelped in a doubled voice, fractures of blue sparking over his face. “On further consideration, Fox, introducing you to anyone who met me before Justice is a very bad idea,” he added, as his voice settled, the blue fading back.

“We’ll be fine,  _ vhenan _ ,” she murmured, lacing her fingers with his as Nate spread his hands in apology. “I really don’t think that will be an issue, as much as I’m certain I’d like to hear that story at some point,” Fox laughed. “It is nice to meet one of his old friends. He speaks fondly of just about everyone from back then but a drunken dwarf.” She slid out of his arms with a lingering kiss, swishing off to the tiny, makeshift kitchen, relighting the fire with a careless flick of her fingers and dragging out the biggest pot.

“Don’t tell me you’re still upset about that joke Oghren made about Templars and their big swords?” Nate asked, incredulously, as Anders studied the ceiling intently. “You freaked out and the Commander just about took him apart over that, and I still have no idea why. Sigrun seemed to get it, but wouldn’t explain.”

“Nate… If you can’t figure that one out, I’m not going to spoil dinner by explaining right now. Just don’t repeat that joke in front of Fox,” the mage sighed, starting to clear off the table. “I’d prefer you avoided stories about your father as well. And any other stories that involve the times I ended things with someone in the most horrible, callous manner I could think of. Please?”

The archer blinked, taking a step forward before he paled, raking his hair back out of his face. “Ah. Well, I… I’ll try to keep the stories edited in your favor,” he offered, in a more conciliatory tone.  “So, she’s a fire mage?” he asked, focusing on carefully unstringing his dragonwing bow.

“Fire default, but she’s a spirit healer like I am. And the way she can take down Templars… pure poetry in motion, Nate.”  he glanced back over his shoulder at Fox, who smiled sweetly back at him. He couldn’t help but smile back, turning back to the other warden with it still on his face.

“Ah. You really have it bad for this girl, then. Although, you and Mikel and the whole eternal death to templars thing…” Nate dumped a worn, griffon embroidered bag on the table, starting to rummage through the outer pockets.

“I have had it bad for this girl for almost four years now, Howe,” Anders remarked quietly. “Of all the things in the world, she is the most precious.” He lapsed back into that fond smile, tilting his head to watch her cook for a moment. “And the ability to kill Templars with style is a perfectly reasonable criteria for a lover. Or it is for us mages, anyways,” he insisted in a louder tone, smirking.

“Okay…. Again, you and the Commander.... And, fine, most of the other former Circle mages I’ve met in the Wardens…  You’d think Templars were as bad as Darkspawn, to listen to you.” The noble born Warden gave up on the pockets, digging into the main part of his pack as Fox set a simmering kettle of tea on the table with a pair of mugs.

 “They aren’t?” both mages asked together with their most wide eyed expressions, before they both laughed at the look on Nate’s face. “Thank you, love,” Anders chuckled, patting his lover affectionately on the rump on her way past him. She grinned, swishing a little more obviously on her way back to tend to the stew. One elbow on the table, he watched her walk across the room before pouring himself a mug of tea. 

Nate rolled his eyes, but grinned at the two of them, finally pulling a battered flask out of the pack. He offered it to the mage first, who shook his head, leaning back in his chair. “It’s not that bad right now. It’s been mostly brandy for the last few refills, and you can barely taste the rotgut I picked up on the way to Weisshaupt.”

“I’m fine. We… I don’t drink much anymore, not anything stronger than ale or watered wine.  Not worth essentially arguing with myself over.” He ran his finger around the rim of his mug, frosting it down enough to drink as the rogue poured a measure of brandy into his own mug before adding tea. “Darkspawn are rabid dogs, Nathaniel. They need to be put down, but its not their fault. They simply are what they are made to be.  Templars… they made a choice to be what they are.” The blond looked up from his study of the dark liquid in his mug, the frost on his fingers melting as fractures of blue dimly played under his skin. “They choose to be the monsters they are.”

Nate eyed those traces of blue, the vivid ring around the dark chocolate eyes he remembered. “I was mostly joking in the tunnels, I didn’t realize… Justice is your dominant personality now, isn’t he?”

“We are one, Nate,” Anders told him, voice doubling slightly. “More or less. Together we could do what we could not do alone,” he added, quietly, still meeting the other Warden’s gaze.

“For life or love, giving instead of just taking, like you had to do with Kristoff,” Nate muttered quietly. “As I said then, I’ll consider you no demon for that, Justice. You and Anders… you both seem happier than you were back then. Despite the facade he kept up.” 

“We are. Happier, and steadier than we were. We’re making a difference here, Nate. The number of people who come to this clinic in need and leave with hope, with the knowledge that magic can help, that it isn’t always a curse…” The mage sipped at his tea, attempting to rein in the rant about the cause.

“You always were good at healing. Saved our lives a few times. Remember that time the Commander nearly bled himself out dealing with that dragon? You cursed up a storm when you noticed what he was pulling, but you got him back on his feet soon enough.” Nate reminded him, taking a swig from his own mug. “And the sheer number of times Oghren charged right past me into traps.”

“That idiot was always a frigging lodestone for finding traps with his face. And then he’d bitch because you hadn’t found them first.” Anders laughed, as Fox pulled up her own chair and poured herself some tea, her face in her hands while she listened.

 “Stupid broody blighter’s supposed to get the traps out of the way so I can sodding kill things!’ Which I was trying to do, if he didn’t miss it in his usual drunken haze. And every time I was lining up the perfect silent kill, he’d be running in again, screaming at the top of his lungs, axe raised.” the dark haired rogue gesticulated, grinning.

“At least you had distance with your bow! He did that trick once when Sigrun was about to hamstring an armored ogre, and startled it into stepping on her. Somehow only broke a couple ribs and her collarbone. She was always a tough little thing.” Anders raised his mug in respect.  “Sneaky but tough as nails, our little optimist. And she always gave back whatever she lifted from you.”

“To our own dead duster,” Nate agreed, “who was the only person at the keep as fascinated by magic and that cat as you were. May she find as much joy in whatever fate she met in the deep roads as she did in the Legion of the Dead.”  He swirled his drink for a moment. “Remember the time she took out an entire squad of genlocks while Velanna had them pinned with vines? Those two were a force of nature, and so much worse together.”

“Velanna was something else. I could have done without the death threats, or the slights against my fireballs, but… She wasn’t that bad, once you got past the ‘humans are bad, I want to kill them all’ thing.” He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “I always envied her a bit. I wanted to know what it was like to grow up a mage outside, under the Dalish method, but there just wasn’t time by the point she realized I wasn’t trying to get under her robes. Well, not just trying to get under her robes,” he admitted.

“She got over the whole ‘evil humans’ thing pretty fast, actually. Or she did around me, anyways. And the Commander, and Seneschal Varel… I think she just didn’t like you, or your tiny fireballs.” Nate teased, and Fox snorted. “What do you say, my lady? How are his fireballs lately?”

The tiny elven mage laughed, spinning a small ball of fire around her palm, the lyrium around it lighting slightly. “Oh, he's always impressive for a southern mage. But mine are better. And bigger.” Her lover pouted dramatically, and she leaned over to kiss the look back off his face. “Velanna would be the Dalish exile that died under the rockfall, right? I wonder what Merrill would have thought about her.”

“They’d vanish into a discussion about elven history and we would never hear anything out of either of them again that didn’t involve Arlathan.” Anders chuckled. “Merrill… She’s a little Dalish First in the middle of a project her clan doesn’t approve of. Lives in the Alienage here.  Sweet little thing, if you ignore the consorting with demons and the blood magic,” He explained for Nate, who raised an eyebrow.

“We really don’t have that much room to disparage that kind of magic, Anders.”  The Arl’s son drained his mug before refilling it equally from his flask and the pot. “Not as Grey Wardens and definitely not with who our Commander was. Just because you have scruples in excess…”

“That isn’t… Amell doesn’t count. I trust him to know what he’s doing. Merrill routinely gets lost within sight of where she’s trying to go. Also, if you remember, our Commander isn’t a malificar. He’s a master of secret special Warden magics, that the crazy old Warden at Soldier’s Peak, Avernus, taught him.” Anders rolled his eyes as he recited the last bit patiently, and Fox snorted tea out her nostrils.

“And these secret magics just happen to superficially resemble blood magic, while having no relation to such evil themselves, of course?” She asked,attempting to cover her  aching nose. “That is such an old game,  _ Vhenan _ . ‘Blood magic is illegal, and so we do not teach it in this circle. Now, if you’ll open your books, we will begin our lesson on sanguimancy.’ Or, even more fun, ‘This is a class on strictly theoretical and philosophical elements. Do not use any of the following techniques, presented in detail for exclusionary purpose.’” Both the southern humans looked at her, and she shrugged. “I studied the theories. Practical application affects higher level Fade connection. Which is why most blood mages, our sweet Merrill kit included, can’t heal for shit.”

Anders nodded noncommittally in understanding as Nate glanced between the two of them in resigned confusion. “Mages. You put two or more in a room and the incomprehensible arcane gibberish commences.” Both mages sideeyed him and he shrugged. “I met a Warden in Nevarra, insisted that ‘mages were like cats. Put more than one in a room, they’ll either fight or fuck eventually,’ he said.”

“I’ve actually heard that saying. But with dragons, instead of cats.” Fox murmured, running her fingers along the back of Ander’s hand. He laced his fingers with hers, his lips crooking fondly up in a half smile.

“Mercurial beasts, hoarding shiny things, toying with their prey, capable of devouring offensive Templars? Cat, dragon, same difference.” He collected the mugs, dropping them in a washbasin before pulling the stew off the fire.

“Anders? What the void kind of cats have you met that eat Templars?” Nate asked, looking worried. 

“ Even if he was possessed by a rage demon, Mr. Wiggums still counts,” the blonde mage retorted. “And I’m sure I could have trained Pounce eventually.”

“Well, I kill Templars and I’m sometimes a cat?” Fox offered, and the archer shook his head. “I haven’t actually eaten any yet, but I suppose, if we ran really low on food…”

“I take it back, my lady. You and Anders do, in fact deserve each other.” He lifted his mug to them as the other Warden dropped a stack of bowls on the table. “As long as that wasn’t the source of anything in this stew.”

“Well, if you actually find meat in there, feel free to worry.” Anders scooped himself a bowl of the usual turnips, onions and carrots. “We only manage to budget that in around the holidays, and I haven’t quite stooped to the rat stew stage. But we have plenty of whatever this is to go around, at least.”

“I bargained our way into enough bottom barrel herring for a week of soup last month.” Fox remarked, setting a loaf of dark bread and a small jar of lard down.

Howe chuckled, ladling himself a bowl. “Bit of a let down from the kitchens in Amaranthine, Anders.” He glanced around the small clinic again, thoughtfully. “Although given the conditions outside your door, dealing with Warden appetite has to be difficult. You’re thinner than you were, and it’s odd seeing you without your bits of glitter,” he remarked, and Anders reached up to the old, empty piercing in his ear automatically. 

“Should have seen me before Fox moved in, Nate. I was getting close to counting my own ribs.” The lean blond held his bowl out for Fox to refill without a word, staring down at his thin fingers and wrists. “We’re doing better now, really. We get by.”

“Anders… The Wardens will take you back in, even with Justice, any time. And Commander Amell would take the both of you in a heartbeat, keep the Templars away. He’s… I know where to reach him. If it gets too much here, if you’re ever in real danger…” Nate picked at his stew. “Even if you weren’t in danger or desperate, I think he’d be glad to see you. I know he’d love to meet your pretty Lady Foxfire.”

 “And I’m sure I’d enjoy meeting him, from everything Anders has told me. One of the old dockworkers, Drake got that job mending nets and offered us a trade of fresh fish for the salve he uses under his peg leg, starting next week. Visit us another time, I’ll try to put something better on the table, Warden.” Fox refilled the dark haired Warden’s bowl as he set it down, and he smirked ruefully at her.

“We’re getting fish on the regular again?” Anders looked up, pleasantly surprised. “How long do you think it will take…” There was a hesitant knock at the door, and he chuckled. “Huh. Speak of tiny demons, and they do arrive.” 

“Be nice.” Fox chided softly, already walking to the door. “Just because the girls always get sent over around dinner time…” She opened the door to a swirl of color and noise completely out of proportion with the scale of the two small elven girls.

“Uncle Anders! Auntie Fox! Hi!” They scrambled in, the smaller, more ginger of the two promptly scaling the lean blond mage like a tree as he laughed. 

“I’m being attacked by a wild Meeka. Won’t someone rescue me?” He asked, rebalancing the five year old carefully over his shoulders. Still by the door, her older sister was enthusiastically relating the last couple days at Fox, who was gently herding her farther into the clinic. Both of them looked up at the human and giggled as Meeka tugged his ponytail loose and grabbed strands of hair like reins.

Kally bounced over to the cupboard, tipping a chair against the workbench under it with the ease of long practice to climb up and grab a pair of bowls. She dropped them on the table and was reaching for a closer chair when she noticed the extra adult. “Oh! Hi?” She took a step back closer to the mages she knew, glancing between them and the dark haired archer. 

“Anders, is your home often invaded by strange elflings at dinner time?” Nate asked, watching Fox fill the bowls and slice more bread without comment. 

“Kally and Meeka are learning magic. Somehow, their mother has decided that the best time for lessons is between late afternoon and late enough we have to walk them home.” Anders tilted his head against the tug at his hair, trying not to flinch as some of the strands frosted under the small fingers. “Meeka, sweetheart, we’re working on not freezing other people, remember?” There was a quietly muttered apology as the small girl hugged his head, and he reached up to ruffle her hair. “It’s fine. Better you practice it here where it’s safe. Kally, Meeka, this is an old friend of mine from the Grey Wardens, Nathaniel.”

“Do you have a griffon?” the taller blonde asked, climbing into the chair next to the archer and staring wide eyed. “Garafel had a griffon, and he was an elf like us. He took down an Archdemon ages and ages ago. Do you fight bunches of darkspawn? Uncle Anders said he used to, but now he’s got the clinic to look after.” 

“No, sadly we don’t have griffons anymore, but I do still fight Darkspawn. I used to fight even more of them with your ‘uncle Anders’.”  Nate passed the seven year old her bowl of stew, refilling his own as he did. 

When he had managed to extricate himself, several carefully edited stories and eager demonstrations of Kally’s small repertoire of electric magic tricks later, Nate bestirred himself to clear the table as Fox walked the girls through focusing and meditation techniques. They were well on their way into tired yawns when a tattooed redhead poked his head through the clinic doors.

“Have I thanked the two of you for taking this on recently, Healer?” the stocky elf asked, as Anders passed an already asleep Meeka over. “I’m trying to get my clan to take at least one them in, if Marethari’s clan will take the other. But it’s slow getting messages out. And… I don’t really want to separate them, let alone take them from their mother, even to get them away from all these Templars. I don’t know what we’ll do if Rella and Soren end up magic as well.”

“It’s fine, Darin. I’m glad… You care about them, you’re making plans and trying. It’s more than some families do. If the price of helping that is having too cute for their own good company for dinner a few times a week…” Anders stroked a hand over Kally’s slightly curled blonde hair as she leaned against his side. “They’re good kids, Darin. And smart enough to take well to training, even as young as they are.”

“Tara… I don’t know if she’s more afraid for them or of them. She’s getting better, the more they do the magic here and not at home, but… She listens to Shana too much. The two of you are circle trained, more or less, and thus somehow safer than… She listens to Shana entirely too much.”  The former Dalish hunter sighed, shifting his sleeping daughter to take his older girl’s hand. “ _ Dareth shiral _ , Healers. Sylaise look after both of you, and all the children you help.” 

Howe watched the way Anders and Fox looked at each other as the children left for the night, and busied himself with his pack. If he had doubted how much his friend… friends, had changed, here was the proof. More human than Justice could have ever managed, more driven than the careless, cheerfully selfish mage could have dreamed of. Despite the flippant comment back in the Deep roads, Anders was clearly very painfully aware of the lingering downsides to having been a Grey Warden, although Nate wondered if that had been a conversation he had had with his pretty mage lover yet. If he hadn’t told her of the Warden infertility or the drastically shortened lifespan yet, this was not the time to bring it up. 

Later, if he could get Anders alone, maybe he should mention the little project Mikel Amell had started researching, as hopeless as the idea of undoing the taint was. Between them, the mages might have more luck at least untangling Avernus’s research, and what he had done to extend his life that far.


	24. Laetan

 Fenris knew something was wrong. He’d waited for this moment since Hadriana had tried to bargain with him, ever since he learned he had a sister. Years of navigating Varric’s web of contacts to search Tevinter for her, months of cautious letters and messages passed across the border. And she had finally come in person, like he had hoped, as he had sent all his coin for… But something was wrong, echoing into his bones.

He stepped into the Hanged Man anyways, trying to shake off the paranoia screaming at the back of his mind. What could he possibly have to fear from a poor Minrathous seamstress, the last bit of family he had? His fingers shook, and he fisted them, restraining the urge to wrap them around the hilt of his sword for comfort. Varric was already inside, probably setting up a table with Bianca the crossbow at his feet.  Isabela was sitting on the bar, her ever present knives sheathed across her shoulder blades, with more at her belt, in her boots, and a jeweled hilt at the top of her cleavage. The rogues would have his back if something started, he knew that after so many years. Even Foxfire, leaning against the bar in her patched coat, laughing at whatever filthy story the pirate was telling, might…. 

The door opened behind him, and Gerry stepped in, grinning optimistically at him. Hawke would have his back, as he had from the day they met, despite some of the ice mage’s more idiotic decisions. Despite his actions after they had… Gerry was always there for him. He smiled slightly back at the stocky human, and took the last step further into the tavern.

The delicately built redhead fidgeting at a small table rose, tugging at a loose strand of her hair as she saw him. “Leto!” she exclaimed, raising dark malachite eyes so much like his own to his face briefly before dropping her gaze. “It really is you. You are here.”

“I… I remember you. We played together in the courtyard as Mother worked,” he murmured, trying to dismiss the chill sliding up his spine as she began avoiding his gaze.  “Varania, what’s wrong?” The sound of all too familiar footsteps on the stairs down from the rooms caught at him, and the warning bells rang louder in his head.

“Ah, my little Fenris, you came after all. Your sister wasn’t entirely certain you would.” The chill down his spine became solid ice, as the magister that still haunted most of his nightmares idly strolled into the taproom, looking him up and down possessively. 

“Danarius,” the elven warrior snarled, even as he stepped back, further into Hawke.

“The word is Master, if you’ve forgotten,” the older mage snapped, reaching back for his staff. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” Foxfire had straightened, running her fingers restlessly over the staff she leaned on in a deceptively careless manner. She flexed her shoulders, studying the room and the mercenaries slinking in behind the magister as she stared up at him with an insolent smirk. 

“Dear little Danae? After the reports I got back, I was afraid I had sent you to your death,” he almost crooned, and her smirk widened, exposing teeth that seemed all too sharp for a moment. “So many Templars here, and such rough handling. Come back here, and I’ll protect you, take you back where you’ll be safe. I won’t even replace that collar of yours,” he added, eyeing the melted silver around her neck. “You can sit at my feet with my little wolf, both my pretty little pets.”

“Fenris belongs to no one!” Gerry hissed, stepping in front of the lanky elf protectively, glaring at the Tevinter noble.

“Is that jealousy I hear, Champion? The lad is skilled, in his own way.” Danarius leered at the armored elf as if the Ferelden wasn’t there.  “Danae, Fenris, heel! Whichever one of you obeys first won’t spend the ride back chained in the hold.”

“Shut your mouth, Danarius!” Fenris growled, flushing angrily, flicking a glance over to note the cold fury on the former  _ incaensor’s  _ face, the flames wavering around her fingertips.

“Agreed.  Danarius,” Foxfire drawled, ignoring his snapped correction of ‘Master’, “I don’t think my foster brother introduced me properly, when he left me at the estate, but I was under enough Magebane I can’t be certain. Enchanter Halisa Altim, of Carastes Circle, once ward and apprentice to Magister Gaius Altim. My name is not and has never been Danae.”  She shifted her staff again, almost casually, watching the Magister pale slightly. 

“Cagagius gave me papers that said otherwise, and I had no real reason to doubt him, did I? Even if you were the  _ Laetan _ you claimed, you’ve accumulated a fair amount of treason on your record for a loyal citizen. Inciting slaves to riot, setting a fair swathe of my estates to flame. And here you are, even now, denying me access to my legal property,” he remarked, sneering at her as he recovered. “Unless you’d like to assist my new apprentice in returning my dear Fenris to me. I’m certain we could come to an agreement regarding the restoration of your status once we returned home.”

“The last time I went along with one of your little agreements, it ended with you setting your newly branded puppy to collar me,” she snorted. “Forgive me if I choose not to play the fool for you more than once.” Danarius reddened, and she smirked at him again. “Besides, there are only three people in Tevinter who can assign Danae’s myriad assortment of sins to my name. Gage would implicate himself criminally in my disappearance if he spoke a word. The other two…” She deliberately glanced between the Magister and Fenris, giving the latter a small smile. “Well, he’s far more entertaining as a free wolf than as your lapdog, and I doubt he’s planning to return to Tevinter at all.”

“I could see you made Tranquil for this,” the magister hissed angrily, and Fox shrugged, leaning back against the bar again as Isabela toyed pointedly with her knives. “Champion, return my property, and I will make sure you are well rewarded.” 

“Fuck no. Fenris is… He’s staying here, with his friends.” Gerry snapped, even as he took a step farther back from the mercenaries drawing their swords. “I’ll give you anything you want, but leave him alone, he isn’t a slave anymore.”  

“You think I’m going to leave here empty handed, with both of my pets barking defiance from behind your robes, Champion?” Danarius asked, incredulously. “I had expected more from your reputation.”

“I… If you can take the girl, you’re welcome to. She’s nothing to me, not if I can keep Fenris safe.” Gerry offered, and immediately flinched from the look Isabela gave him, as Fox raised an eyebrow. “If you want to take him, though, you have to go through me.”

“Idiot mage,” Fenris muttered, unable to hide all the exasperated affection in his tone. “If you want either of us, you’ll have to come and get us, Danarius.” He stepped forward, head high as he drew his sword. 

 

A swift crossbow bolt slammed into the neck of the first mercenary to move. The Rivaini pirate danced into the middle of them, hamstringing one, slitting another’s throat with the same graceful motion. Fire wove around her, spinning into cords that pulled feet out from under the fighters and wrapped around their necks as Fox strode in, bladed staff whirling. Danarius cursed, barely dodging a swing from Fenris’s massive sword, lashing out with a blast of lightning, aiming for the runes along his smaller pet’s spine. Only a fool created tools out of  _ incaensor _ without a way to take them back down.  “You should have taken the deal, little mage,” he laughed, as the failsafe activated. “I will spend the rest of your life making you regret defying me!”

Fox dropped to one knee, fighting the scream bubbling up in her throat. The manaclash raged across the connected web of glyphs, as the lightning surged through her veins. She could still hear the clatter of battle around her, see the nearest soldier laugh as he stepped towards her, blade ready.  She let the anger build, bright and painful as the sun, blotting out the snarled mortal magic along the tangled lyrium, and pushed it out as flame, as her teeth sharpened and wings begged to sprout from her shoulders. With a shriek, she turned the lightning back on him, even as he struck her again. Fox flooded her system with her own power, seizing back control as the lyrium ran molten just under her skin.  It hurt, as she could see the wood smoldering under her hands and knees, smell the wool of her coat smoking against her burning skin, but she forced herself up. One foot, then the other, almost glowing, slit pupiled eyes glaring at him, framed by the shimmering flame of her hair. With a careless flick of her hand, fire blossomed outward again, the last of the mercenaries crumbling to ash as Isabela dodged the sword skittering over the floor.

Danarius took a step back from her, hair singed as he tried to understand why the painstakingly planned runes weren’t working. She should be unable to move, let alone call magic into her seared veins. He took another step, and felt a clawed gauntlet wrap around the back of his neck.  “My precious Fenris, destroy her. Protect me, and I will reward you with anything…”

“You are no longer my master, Danarius,” the green eyed warrior growled, and phased his hand into the Magister’s chest, lyrium glowing. He held it there for a long moment, feeling the old mage’s heart fluttering under his fingers, before he squeezed slowly.  Danarius dropped at his feet and Fenris stared at him, dully, the dark blood dripping down off his gauntlets onto the expensive robes the dead man wore.

 

 Ahead of him, Foxfire dropped back down to one knee, her hair singed short around her shoulders, pulling the smoking coat off her shoulders, dropping the dripping, molten mess of her collar and leashkey onto the blackened floor. Thin runnels of glinting lyrium ran down her fingers, and she winced, glancing down at the smoldering lines covering her tunic. “ _ Fasta vass _ , that hurt.  _ Vishante kaffas _ ,” she rasped through an aching throat, as Isabela hauled her over to a table. “ _ Fenhedis lasa, dahn’direlan _ .”

“You look like bilgemuck, foxkit.” The pirate rested a hand over the elf’s shoulder, the cloth still stingingly warm, feeling her friend flinch violently back from the touch. “Fenris doesn’t look much better. Varric, I know your barkeep hides the good stuff under the counter, but in a good cause…”

“I think someone fetching Blondie would do more good than dosing Snapdragon with expensive brandy, Rivaini.” Varric slung the crossbow back over his shoulder, stepping over the corpses and piles of ash without even a glance down. “Broody…,” he started, even as Gerry reached out towards the tall elf.  

“Fen? I think it’s over now, he’s dead.” The ice mage lightly fisted his fingers, restraining the urge to brush the hanging lock of hair back out of Fenris’s face. Even three years after that night… No matter how many nights he vanished into the Blooming Rose, no matter how many strangers he flirted with, nothing compared to that elf with his moss green eyes. But despite how often he dreamed of that night, Fenris had made his desire for space clear. Better to keep him at arm’s length as a friend than lose him entirely.

  Those green eyes flickered over toward the scruffy mage at the sound of his voice, lips twitching into the merest hint of a smile, before the elf caught sight of his sister. She was still cowering behind a table, darting terrified glances at the still armed crew and her brother.  He stalked towards her, lyrium flaring bright. “You led him right to me, Varania. You… you..betrayed me to him, after I… I would have given you everything!”

“You know nothing of what I’ve gone through, Leto! He offered to make me his apprentice. I… I could have become a Magister!” the redhead snapped at him, backing against the wall under the approach of his fury. “Leto…”

“ Stop calling me that! It isn’t my name anymore. You sold out your own brother for a chance at a seat on the Magisterium?” he pressed, as she flattened herself against the wall. “What power mad…”

“You competed for those markings, used the boon to free mother and I. But freedom was no boon! I look at you now, and I think you got the better end of the bargain.” Varania flinched as Fenris raised a glowing hand as he had to the Magister, looking over his shoulder at the rest of them. “Please don’t let him do this!”

“Elf… Fenris. It won’t help, it really won’t, believe me.” Varric remarked, leaning against the bar.  Fenris looked up, his expression wavering, and Varric patted him as high up on his shoulder as the dwarf could reach. “You aren’t the only one with a treacherous sibling, Broody.”

“Thank you for that, Varric. I think I had almost forgotten your brother Bartrand leaving us for dead in the Deep Roads,” Gerry muttered, but smiled ruefully at the dwarf when he shot the mage a look. “Fen… Family sucks, but losing it… that hurts more. I don’t want you to… I don’t want to see you hurt over this later.” The lanky elf paused at that, turning to stare at a suddenly stammering stocky mage.  His sister took the opportunity of his lapse in attention, scrambling out away from the wall and dashing for the door. Fenris watched her go, the light fading back out of his brands. 

“And now I’m alone.”  He looked down at the blood still coating the spiked metal of his gauntlets, oozing down over the stark silver white markings etched into his dark skin. 

“Hey! What do you call us?” Isabela climbed back from behind the bar, filling one of the  tall glasses she held with dark amber liquid and sliding it over in his direction. She filled another pair, set the mostly empty bottle back on the counter and sidled back to the table Foxfire still sprawled at.

“I’m your friend, Fenris. Or at least I hope I am.” Gerry ran his hand back thru his dark, rough cropped hair, grinning appealingly at his favorite elf. 

“Is that what we are?” Fenris murmured, smiling faintly as he picked up the glass the pirate had passed him, looking away from the ice mage’s dark blue eyes to stare down into the brandy. “Mage… Hawke, I… You fought for me. You all fought for me. I’ll remember that, I need to remember that.” He slugged down a fair portion of the glass, ignoring the dwarf’s sudden glare at Isabela,who was reaching for the bottle again with an empty glass in her hand. Hesitantly, he reached out, running the pads of his fingers over the bruise swelling along Hawke’s cheekbone before pulling back like he’d been burned as the door opened.

 

“Well, this place is more of a mess than usual, but... Varric, what did you send a runner fo…” Anders took in the scattering of corpses over the common room with only a sigh, until the image of the scorched blue and tan coat in the middle of them sank in. “No, no no no fuck no…” He scrambled forward blindly, grabbing for the ragged fabric.

“ _ Eanvher...vhenan _ ,” a croak of a voice whispered from a table further in, and his head whipped around, moving even as he clutched the coat to his chest.  

“Oh, thank the fucking Maker.  What the void happened? Fox, love, are you alright?” He dropped his old coat on the table, staring at the charred linen tunic she still wore. With a muffled curse, he pushed aside some of her singed hair, checking the blistering burns that started around her neck. “This looks… oh, my love.” He winced, carefully cradling her face as she mustered a wan smile up at him. “This is not a point in favor of you going drinking alone with Isabela, sweetheart.”

“ _ Amatus _ ,” she whispered, gingerly resting her hand over his. “I nee’ a really big favor” He brushed his lips over her fingers, tilting his head in concern. “ ‘m gonna drink the shit ‘bela poured for me and see if that dulls the fact everything hurts. Go make sure Fenris isn’t gonna die. Or Hawke. He isn’t ‘lowed to die yet. Tell him ‘m gonna remember today.”

 From her chair on the other side of the table, Isabela snorted, and topped off Fox’s glass before swigging down the last of the bottle. “Anders, if you go talk to the boys, I’ll keep an eye on your lady. She’s a damn sight better in a fight that I thought she’d be, even with whatever tricks that ass pulled on her.”

 

“Danarius set a trap, one I fell for. Foxfire was… an unexpected bonus, as far as he was concerned.” Fenris explained through gritted teeth, allowing himself to be nudged into a chair and checked over. “Although I’m certain he would have gone after her the moment he learned she was still here.” 

“I… Thank you for killing him, as much as it pains me to praise you for killing a mage.” Anders forced out the words, focusing on the burn along the edge of the elf’s armor. “What he did to her… and to you… was unconscionable. The thought that I might have lost her back to that…” The healer shook his head, rubbing a hand over his blue ringed eyes, and missed the way the dwarf coughed and elbowed a suddenly furtive Hawke.

Fenris eyed the former Warden warily, looking for the hidden insult in the words. “She… She seems to have remembered quite a bit of her life before Danarius,” he remarked carefully.

“Her theory involves the amount of time she spends helping Justice, in the Fade and out. But yes, she’s pretty certain on most of who she is, even if she might not be proud of all she did.” the blond replied, already working to close the sword slice over Gerry’s shoulder.  “Varric, I might need to beg the use of a room for a night. Going by her tunic, she has burns far enough down I don’t want to treat them in front of everyone, and she’s clearly exhausted besides.”

“That’s fair, Blondie. I think Rivaini has managed to pour about a third of a bottle of pricy booze into a seven stone mage, so getting her anywhere under her own power is an iffy idea anyway.” the dwarf shrugged, looking around at the wreck of his tavern. “Not like I’m renting rooms to anyone paying until we get this mess dealt with. Take the same room she hauled you into last time your lives went stupid.” 

 

He peeled the linen fabric off her as carefully as he could, biting back the curses he thought of as the extent of the burns became evident. “How much damn lightning did he hit you with?”  he asked, almost tracing the fractal lines that skittered over her skin. “All the runes seem to have fried themselves, with most of the lyrium melted into the new scars.”

“Bastard hid a failsafe with the manaclash, the stupid runes ‘long my spine, tried to use it t’ take me down. Had t’ pull a lot more magic than usual t’ counter it, a lot more… fire.” She winced a bit as he tugged the fabric away from a raw patch near her spine. “Fried the last of the bindin’ collar with it, at least, but I’m fuckin’ done for the day.”

“That is something to be glad for, at least.” Anders cautiously laid a hand above the worst of the blisters on her neck before trying to ease a healing spell over her. At this point, what manaclash his magic could cause wouldn’t be worse than the pain of leaving the burns… She hissed slightly as the magic sank in, tensing against him, only to relax as the burns faded. “Better?” The blond mage ran a finger lightly over the pink toned new skin, and Fox leaned back into him. “Still want me to get the rest of it?” She nodded, and he gently ran his hands down the charred lines of her back, watching the lyrium flicker softly as the raw, angry flesh around the new patterns eased. The backs of his fingers brushed over the fractals crawling up her spine in a flicker of blue fractures, and the patterns lit, like lightning crawling over a stormy sky, and the now familiar echo of song rang at the back of his mind.

“Well that still feels ‘mazing,” she murmured, relaxing further into his touch. “Didn’t feel the manaclash much when you were healing me, either. I love you, you know.”

He hummed a little in agreement, mostly focused on soothing the rest of the burns that had replaced her runic markings. “I love you, Fox. But I...If you were anyone but yourself, this might have… If you had access to even a little less power, I might have lost you. Maker, for a moment when I walked in, I thought I might have.”  Anders dropped onto the soft mattress next to her, pulling her close and pressing his face into her hair. “It’s an odd thought, to be grateful to Fenris, even if his protection of you was largely based on protecting himself. It’s even odder to think of Hawke trying to protect anyone but himself. If he can change that much, maybe there’s hope yet after all.”

“‘ _ matus _ , when ’m properly awake ‘gain, we need to have a talk. B’fore ‘bela tells you ‘bout  today,” Fox yawned, fingers tangling into the black coat Anders still wore.

“Alright, little fox.” He found his fingers tracing the deeper lines of lyrium scarring out into its delicate, almost fern like branches. There were patches he could almost see the underlying scars from the runes the bluish lightning scars had replaced, but… It was pretty, in a far less controlled manner than the original pattern. “These suit you better, if you don’t mind me saying it, love. A force of nature, as uncontrollable as a summer storm.” Aquamarine eyes blinked at him, sleepily amused, and he kissed her forehead tenderly, pulling the blanket up over them.

 


	25. Responsibility

“You knew,” the taller elf remarked as he stepped into the clinic, a great deal of snap in his tone.

“I know a lot of things, Fenris, Which are you accusing me of today?” Fox responded, without even looking up from the herbs she was slicing. 

“You knew I took the markings willingly,” he hissed, pacing the clinic restlessly.

“That’s a debatable term. You signed up for the tournament willingly, knowing it meant any boon in the magister’s power if the winner agreed to an experimental ritual. I have grave doubts you had any idea what the ritual entailed, from what I heard before it started.” she continued preparing salves, not looking at him. “But yes, when I was prevailed upon into standing as healer and keeping you alive, you claimed to be willing.”

“Why… You never said that before, even when I… Why didn’t you tell me?” He demanded, stopping to stare at her.

“When we were still in the  _ Castellan Tenebris _ , I didn’t remember. By the time I did… It didn’t strike me as a detail that would help. As I said, you were as much coerced as anything, and the way the ritual went… You didn’t know what you were agreeing to. “ She finally looked up at him, biting her lip. “Would you have preferred I tell you that, when you remembered so little of what was before? I knew there was a boon involved, but not that you had freed your family with it.”

“I… you are right. It would have hurt to hear that. Not that I would have believed you before Varania, anyways.”  With an aggravated huff, he returned to pacing silently, looking anywhere but at her. Abruptly, he stopped again, taking a half step towards her, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I apologize,” he said brusquely, and she set down the knife, tilting her head as she regarded him skeptically. “None of what happened to me was your fault, but I still… Even though I was given no choice about my actions, I took pleasure in being allowed to hurt you. You were the only mage I was allowed to harm, and I took advantage of it.  The times I kicked over that bowl of water they left in your cage when I put you back in was…” He met her eyes briefly before dropping his gaze again.

“I knew what he did to you as his favorite pet, and I threw it in your face repeatedly,” She remarked conversationally. “I used to use the most painful method available to heal you after he’d broken you yet again, and he knew it, he encouraged it.” Lacing her fingers together, she stretched, spending a moment considering the almost featherlike, delicate lyrium etched down the back of her hands and fingers. “Consider this, pup.. Fenris. He handed the leashkey over to you every time he asked you to put me back in my kennel. We were the two most powerful creatures in the  _ Castellum _ , he gave neither of us any reason to love him, and at least one of us was raised to freedom. If we hadn’t hated each other so much…”

“You’re saying he feared us turning against him. That he kept us at each other’s throats for his own convenience.” The lanky warrior frowned, staring down at the bold veins of lyrium running down his own fingers as what she was saying sank in. 

“Oh, I’d say his own amusement as well, sadist that he was, but yes. I’m saying if we had ever trusted each other enough to join forces, we could have escaped easily. Our talents complement nicely like that.”  She tipped her head the other way watching as the truth of what she had told him continued to sink in, until he snarled, slamming a glowing fist into the nearest shelf. “Mind that, we don’t have the funds for endless replacement of supplies here,” she scolded, the vials and jars caught mid air in a glow of magic, settling back on the shelf as it righted itself. “Unless you want to go beg a clinic donation from that Hightown loverboy of yours. A bit of actual gold, and we could afford to do a lot more with this place,” she shrugged, glancing around at the ragged cots and scarred tables, swiping her hand over a name carved into the one she sat at.

“Hawke is a good man, just… I care for him, despite his magic. Despite his occasional moment of… incaution.” Fenris spoke in a fond tone, stepping away from the shelving. 

“You like him because he’s absolutely besotted with you, to the point of willing to fight a magister to protect you.” She rolled her eyes, smiling at the irritated grumble he directed at her. “Don’t look at me like that. He’s pined for you for as long as I’ve been in Kirkwall, his habit of consoling himself with every male in the brothel notwithstanding. I just don’t like him, probably because that ribbon thin protective streak of his does not extend to me or the people I most care about.”

“True, but would your… Would Anders have lifted a finger in my defense if he had been there and you hadn’t been involved?” Fenris pointed out, and she shrugged, looking away. “I will admit… He hadn’t seen you, when you spoke up. He thought you were dead and beyond his reach. You could have gotten out of there before the fight, even if you didn’t know about the failsafe. You could have taken the deal he offered, gone back to being a  _ Laetan _ freemage.”

“You might not have been paying attention at the time, but the last time I agreed to one of that Magister’s deals, he fucked me over the instant he had what he wanted, without even a token effort at playing along. When I then tried to free myself from blatantly illegal confinement, he sent you to put a binding collar around my neck and used that same ritual to strip me of my memories of freedom. If we had gone back to Tevinter with him, I guaran-damn-tee you that neither of us would have remembered anything within a week.” She picked up the knife again, going back to slicing the embrium. “It was self preservation, puppy, not altruism. Don’t read too much into it.  Now, if you have enough answers, I have work to do, and Anders never actually rescinded your exile from our little haven. The blue jar by the door has frostbite balm, the clear one next to it has a cream that should ease some of the ache in the lyrium marks if you keep using it.”

 

“ _ Eanvher _ , is it a southern holiday I’ve forgotten about?” Fox asked as Anders lugged in the last of the supplies they’d spent the last several hours bargaining for, standing in the middle of the clinic staring at the kitchen workbench.

“Not that I can think of, why?” he asked, before taking note of the large bowl of dipped strawberries in front of her. “Is it just me or do those have…”

“That’s chocolate. There are chocolate covered strawberries in our kitchen, my heart. I haven’t even seen those since I was nineteen.” She stepped forward hesitantly, sniffing slightly, freezing again when she noticed the subdued shimmer of magic around the bowl. “Chocolate covered strawberries with a stasis spell laid over them, at that…”

“Not my doing, love, as happy as I would be to find that much room in the budget.” He looked around, eyes narrowing as other changes became evident. “These… these are not the shelves that were here this morning, Fox.” The tall mage reached out, running a long finger over the clean, smooth wood. “They did a nice job of putting everything back in place, but these are so much better… The tables are all sanded and oiled, the cupboard has new hinges…” Opening the cupboard near the kitchen bench exposed a set of plates and bowls without any of the cracks and chips they were accustomed to.

“All of our workknives have ironbark handles now, and…” Fox reached across the bench, raising an eyebrow at the golden tinged metal. “Well, that’s an alloy I haven’t seen in an age or ten. I’m still lost on why, but I might have an approximate who.” More confidant and rather amused, she perused the small shelves in their little kitchen. “Another ironbark mortar, a couple new jars of honey, sugar, salt and flour jars are full, and there’s a brick of the teaherbs the local Dalish seem fond of. Whichever one it is, and I have my suspicions…” She paused for a moment, tilting her head, then bounced over to the back door. “Doshiel, you might as well get in here.”

The tall, broad shouldered elf with the same metallic gold vallaslin the other Sentinel had worn shuffled nervously in, carefully leaning his maul against the wall. “Blessed Sylaise,” he greeted her, bowing deeply. “The First of your Shadows returned to the Temple with tales of your return, although the Temple First…”

“ Basically, Ras went home and started quarrelling with Nydmisa again, and you decided to come and see for yourself?” Fox interjected. “Skip the grovelling and the praise of my name, if you please, my wanderer.”

“As you like, Lady..” he glanced up to check her expression, raked a hand back through short auburn hair, and sighed heavily. “Foxfire. How did you know it was me?” She pointed at the replaced shelving and sanded tables without a word, and he coughed. “Well, I mean… the twins might have started fixing things if left to their own devices…” Fox picked up the bowl of strawberries with a smile, and he grinned ruefully at her. “Rasanis strongly implied we weren’t actually welcome here. Bribery seemed a good starting point… which the twins wouldn’t have thought of.”

“Rasanis isn’t welcome here after what they pulled last time. You haven’t crossed that line yet.” She dropped into a chair, selecting a strawberry out of the bowl with a thoughtful expression on her face. “But I would vastly appreciate it if no one wakes the twins up to bring them into this.   _ Vhenan _ , this is Doshiel, once of the Temple of June and the First of my Champions. Doshiel, this is Anders,  _ ma’esalath’lan _ .  _ Lardarelan’elgar _ and  _ Tunan Era’elgar _ .”

“An honor to meet you then, Anders,” the elf barely restrained himself from sinking into another bow, running his hand back through his hair nervously. “I wish you the best of luck in your courtship with our Lady.” He flicked a quick glance back at Fox, exhaled softly, and grinned. “I suspect you will need all you can get.”  She huffed, drawing herself up for a moment before laughing and the Sentinel relaxed.

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll need all that much extra luck,” Anders chuckled, reaching out to lace his fingers with hers before deftly snagging a large berry out of the bowl. She wrinkled her nose up at him, but held up another as he finished the first, and Doshiel chuckled.

“Perhaps not, if she’s is already besotted enough with you to share those. I’ve heard of  her biting people over less.” His  _ Evanuris _ promptly stuck her tongue out at him, gesturing him to a chair before passing over a handful of the confections. He blinked at her, dumbfounded, very hesitantly taking the offered treats.

“The Firefox is not quite the spoiled child she was before,” Anders remarked in a rumble and flicker of blue, before pressing a soft kiss to her forehead and picking out a third berry to nibble at. “And these are really very good.” 

“I see why Rasanis returned in such a strop. Being so clearly unseated as Sylaise’s favorite after so many millennia must be unsettling, even for one like them. There was a time when they were the only one tolerated to speak that way to our lady, regardless of who warmed her bed.”  The ancient Champion smiled wryly, eating the fruit he had been given. “Although she always allowed all of her Firsts far more leeway in addressing her than most of her family, even when she wasn’t attempting to sneak out of the Temple and pretend to be one of her own Sentinels.”

“That would have worked far better if Nydmisa hadn’t told Mother about that trick…” Fox snorted, and rose, stacking some of the treats into smaller bowls. “I should save some for Isabela, but she’d ask where we got them. One each for Kally and Meeka, then, and a bowl for Merrill.” Fox blinked as she said that, a corner of her lip curving up into a devious smile. “Doshiel, you were one of June’s once, and are still the most craft inclined of my favorites. How much do you know about  _ Eluvians _ ?”  


	26. Eluvians

She shoved the bowl at the green eyed elven mage, sitting on the edge of the table as Doshiel dismissed his maul into a flicker of green mist. He circled the twisted metal frame, humming slightly to himself, occasionally tapping at the glass. Merrill had drawn herself up indignantly as Fox had shown the strange elf in, only to find herself holding a bowl of strawberries while the very broad shouldered elf inspected the half mended  _ Eluvian _ .  “Fascinating,” He murmured. “Some of the rune sets are off kilter, and the frame is highly unorthodox, but…” He ran an appraising hand over the glass and whistled. “You got this far with a single shard? How long has your clan been working with the old magics?”

“Actually, her clan seems very disapproving about the whole idea. This is all Merrill.” Fox grinned as Doshiel looked up, clearly impressed, and snagged a berry off the top of the small bowl.

“You did all this on your own?” he asked, glancing back at the green eyed mage and peering around at the assortment of old books and tools scattered around the small room. “It’s not all the way I might have gone about making it, but I grew up around  _ Eluvians _ . This is so close...” He trailed off, tracing some of the carving work reverently.

Merrill brightened, picking up the  _ Arulin’holm _ . “Audacity helped me figure most of it out.” she admitted, stepping forward next to him. “And the spells got much easier once Fox started helping. Although Audacity says that’s because she’s actually…” she flicked a nervous glance at the white haired elf, who raised an eyebrow before sighing.

“Please remember what I said about stories changing as they are told, vherlin. Just because something isn’t a lie doesn’t mean it all happened the way you think it did.” Fox made eye contact with a bemused Sentinel, and rubbed at her temples. “I was  _ Halisa _ long before they built temples in my honor, and I can still set either of you on fire if you start groveling.  Doshiel, feel free to explain as much as you like, if you want to stay and help her get this finished.”

“Blessed Sylaise, you think I’d willingly miss out on helping finish the first new  _ Eluvian _ since the fall?” The dark eyed Sentinel chuckled at Fox’s dismissive shrug, bowing slightly to Merrill. “With your leave, of course,  _ da’era’lan _ .”

“What? Oh!  _ Ma’serranas _ if you can help, please. I think some of the weaves behind the glass aren’t going right,” the green eyed elf pleaded, offering the older elf the ancient tool.

“ _ Sathem _ , then. Pleased to help,” he murmured, raking a hand back through his short hair. The dalish First and the elvhen warrior both glanced back over at Fox, who was grinning entirely too much, and stepped right into each other.

Somehow, they managed to repeat the trick repeatedly, before making it to opposite sides of the mirror. By the time the stammered apologies and blushing stopped, Fox had made a quiet escape.

  
  
  


“How can you still deny that the mages are being oppressed here? You’ve been to the Gallows, you’ve seen the cells they are kept in!” Anders glared across the table at the archer in polished armor, trying to pull the lightning back from his fingers. 

“I have seen none of the atrocities you claim as common. Meredith may be… perhaps a trifle harsh, but the Grand Cleric is a good woman, Anders. If it was as bad as you claim, she would have stepped in.” Sebastian glanced disdainfully over at the apostate before returning to studying his cards.  “There are rules against the sort of violence and violations you describe. ’”

“Tevinter has laws forbidding blood magic, excessive ill treatment of slaves, and the trade in kidnapped elves from outside its borders,” Fox noted in precisely the same conversational tone the Starkhaven royal had used, a thin tendril of smoke rising from where her fingers fisted in her over long sleeves. “I’m certain Fenris has enlightened you on exactly how effective those are in practice.”  Fenris looked up from the other end of the table, evidently debating joining the argument. 

“Chantry policies are hardly the same as whatever passes for law under the rule of mages,” The pale skinned brunette retorted with a touch of heat.  “Magic is meant to serve man, and never to rule over him.”

“I sincerely doubt Andraste would approve of spending her life trying to free slaves only for her followers to turn around and enslave the mages in their own lands,” Anders responded through gritted teeth, forcing his magic back under control and picking his own hand of cards back up.

“This is why I said inviting Choir boy and Blondie to the same game was a bad idea now, Snowflake.” Varric stared into his mug of dwarven stout, rubbing at his temple. “Because it never stays just a quiet discussion.”

“The mages are hardly slaves.” Fenris snapped, setting down his wine. Next to him, Hawke shrank back into his chair, catching the dwarf’s gaze long enough to mouth an apology. “They are well fed, given access to entertainment and company. Do not compare their lot to what I lived through, mage.”

“So the fact they are routinely beaten or raped, living in terror of a fate worse than death, all that means nothing just because you had it worse?” Anders slammed his cards back onto the table, almost snarling at the lean elf.

“Grand Cleric Elthina would never allow that kind of abuse to continue, not if she was given evidence of it. Evidence you never seem to have, Anders.  I’ll admit some of the Templars might give in to the temptation of using force to discipline their charges, but it is hardly…” Sebastian huffed, shaking his head at the mage across the table.

“Leaving aside the very real abuses both of us have seen first hand,” Fox leaned back in her chair, staring down the other side of the argument icily.  “Even if the mages weren’t treated badly, how does that make any of it right?” Fenris and the Prince of Starkhaven blinked at her, baffled into silence.  “Let’s play a little game. Fenris, you now live in Hawke’s manor. You are given any food or clothing you like, you have constant access to a library and the closest of your friends. But you aren’t allowed to leave, and you can’t have your sword except under strict supervision. There are no windows you’re allowed near, and armed guards watch your every move. They watch you bathe, they watch you sleep.” She noted his flinch, the way his eyes darted between Hawke and Sebastian before settling back on her. “That is the rosiest, most optimistic idea of how the Circles are supposed to work, Fenris. How long could you stay there before going mad with it? Because I couldn’t do it.”

  
  
  


“Give me a couple weeks to get the materials we need for the restoration, and maybe a week of work between the little mage and I, and you’ll have a working  _ Eluvian _ , Lady Sylaise.” Doshiel informed her the next day, leaning on the wall. “Or her clan will, if we can talk them into taking her back. Merrill says… Well, she says her keeper isn’t happy with the idea of the project, or the magic she’s learning. I’m not sure why..”

“You’re used to the idea of magic fueled by life force being almost as common as magic fueled by personal mana. It’s considered very risky to use blood or death to power spells, and the mark of a mage running to the darker side of things. And given that most these days rely on unwilling sacrifices and techniques learned from corrupted spirits…” Fox stirred the large pot of porridge, tasting a bit before heavily seasoning it with salt and honey. Her sentinel stepped past her, digging under the workbench and pulling out a spell sealed jar. She took the jar hesitantly, prying it open to sniff at the contents before sneezing reddish brown powder across the floor. “Really? What else did you stock in this kitchen without telling me… If you snuck saffron in, I swear…”

He smiled as she carefully shook a portion of the jar into the pot. “I’d have to sneak that out past Evuniel first. Rasanis told him you were living in… less than adequate conditions, and he packed a box of emergency supplies I was to bring your cook, to tide you over until I could bring you home. I don’t think the idea of an  _ Evanuris _ doing their own cooking… or anything… ever occurred to him.” 

“It is on the list of things I haven’t done since Arlathan was more than a village.  Ras burns water on a regular basis, and I had almost a century where it was just me and them, out on our own. But then there was the Temple being built to me, where I could teach more healers,with Nydmisa to run it. Suddenly, I had a whole house of servants, of Sentinel guards, and… Everything got rather out of hand from there.” Fox stirred the porridge again, offering him the spoon to taste. 

He raised an eyebrow, but sampled the breakfast anyways. “That isn’t bad. It isn’t anything Evuniel would allow out of his kitchen, but…” He raked his hair back and trailed off as he remembered who he was talking to, and she laughed at his expression. “I.. I didn’t realize Rasanis’ service predated the Temple.”

“They are actually a couple years older than I am. Ras was one of my brother’s first acolytes, until… I think the story went along the lines of he propositioned them, they said no, he pushed, and they punched him.  Our family was already… Falon’din decided to make an example out of them, until I called in a favor.” Fox loaded another pot with water and eggs and added it to the hearth. “Me being sentimental enough not to want it to happen in front of me, and all that. I managed to keep them alive, and they swore themselves to me.”

“Well, that story sounds familiar,” Doshiel chuckled, grinning ruefully at her. “And here I thought you didn’t start taking in strays until after you had the Temple.” 

“I certainly had more room to keep all of you after that was built,” she smiled at him before flicking a hand dismissively. “Would you mind setting the table? I’m sure you’ve figured out where the bowls are. It’ll be..” she tilted her head, thinking. “Probably five places, as long as you’re staying.”

“There is something very wrong about the idea of you cooking for me,” he muttered, already moving to the cupboard. “You, me, your  _ esalath’lan _ , who are the other two coming for a late breakfast?” From the other side of the clinic, he heard the door open, and a shrill yet joyful shriek.

“Auntie Fox! Unca Anders came and got us today, an’ he said we get to stay here all day!” Meeka came scrambling across the room, launching herself at the slender healer. A slightly smaller blur was at her heels, latching herself around the  _ Evanuris _ ’ leg with a garbled repetition of her name, peering around the coat at the taller elf. 

“Good morning, darlings. I see your parents decided to send all three of you today.” She stroked the three year old’s hair while hugging Meeka one handed. “Make that six places, my wanderer. We were tipped off about Templars planning a search of the Alienage today, and  _ Ma’vhenan _ agreed to fetch certain tiny mages here for safety.” Doshiel grabbed another plate, a slightly worried crease between his brows. “Miss Merrill is spending the day out with Hawke and Isabela, if that’s what’s worrying you,” Fox remarked, and saw the concern ease, even as he looked anywhere but at her. 

Anders strode in, Kally skipping at his heels. “Darin suggested we take all three today, just in case. Which has nothing to do with the fact Rella threw a fit at her sisters leaving without her today.” The smallest of the girls stuck her tongue out at him, and he chuckled, taking the bowl Fox passed him. A baffled sniff, and he set the bowl down. “Where the void did we get cinnamon for this?”  His lover pointed wordlessly at the Sentinel she had just handed a bowl to, and the mage blinked. “Well, of all the days for the girls to be here for breakfast,” he chuckled, watching the children’s eyes widen after the first bite of porridge. “I haven’t had food like this since I left Vigil Keep.” He adroitly pulled his bowl farther away from a still hungry seven year old as Fox refilled her bowl with a smirk. “The table manners and attempted food thieving seem highly familiar, as well.”

“Well, if all the Wardens had the appetite you generally do…” Fox snorted, wrinkling her nose at the lean blonde. “I made enough for everyone to have several helpings. I’ve learned that lesson.”


	27. More destructive than dragon fire

“She’s going to kill me.” Anders looked around the bleak stone walls of the Vimmark fortress. “I promised her no more long trips after the Chateau. This is just a little day trip to track down some crazy dwarves, I’ll be back by tomorrow evening, I swore to her…” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else in the group. “She is absolutely going to kill me when we get home.”

“If we get home,” Carver muttered balefully, glaring at the sealed gate behind them as he tugged at the vial around his neck. “It’s annoying enough when my brother’s crazy spills over into my life, without listening to your whining as well. I still can’t believe even the Carta managed to get an assassin into Warden barracks.”

 

 

“Fox? Fox, I am so sorry. I swore no more long trips, but this last thing with Hawke went absolutely insane..” Anders started apologizing before he even dropped the sorry remains of the daypack he’d taken with him. A tiny, sobbing blur of ginger hair came charging into him, babbling frantically and incoherently. “Meeka? Meeka, why are you...? It’s okay, it will be okay..” he automatically began soothing, crouching down to wrap a protective arm around the five year old. “I need you to calm down and talk slower, please. I can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Uncle Anders! Uncle Anders, they took Kally, and Da’s hurt and  _ Mamae _ is mad and it’s all my fault!”  The small elf clung to him desperately, still sobbing, and he hefted her up onto his hip to hold her closer as Fox came out of the small office. She smiled faintly at him, her eyes bloodshot and tired.  “The rat jumped out at me and the fountain froze, but Kally told them she did it! Then Da tried to get Kally away, he told us to run, but they hit him and he fell. Mamae told me I was a monster and they should take me too!”

“Templars?” He mouthed at Fox, still gently rubbing the girl’s back, and she nodded, pinching at the bridge of her nose. “Meeka, sshh, Meeka, sweetheart, it isn’t your fault. You were scared, and your magic tried to protect you. It isn’t your fault that the Templars took your sister over it, or that your father tried to protect the both of you. You are not a monster, little mage.”

“But  _ Mamae _ said…” Meeka sniffled, face still buried in the feathers of his coat, as Fox came up beside them, running a consoling hand over the girl’s cheek.

“Your mother  is... She just doesn’t understand, Meeka. She’s upset about your father and Kally, and… We’ll talk to her when she’s had more time to calm down, okay?” Fox soothed, guiding Anders to carry the still disconsolate elven child to a curtained cot already made up with the softest blankets in the clinic. “You aren’t a monster, and none of this was your fault, just remember that.”  She started humming a soft elven lullaby as Anders tucked her in.

When they were sure she was asleep, Fox heaved a sigh, leaning heavily against the human mage’s side, digging her fingers into his coat as desperately as Meeka had. “Mother’s mercy, it has been a  long…  _ Vhenan _ , you said you would only be gone a day, chasing those dwarves. There hasn’t been a word of any of you since you left. I thought you...”

“I know, love, and I’m so sorry.” He draped his arm over her shoulder, pressing soft kisses against the top of her head. “We got trapped in an ancient Warden prison, one locked with Hawke blood. Between the darkspawn and what we found imprisoned there… I wasn’t sure if we’d make it back at all, for a time.” Anders nuzzled into her neck, attempting to convince himself he was back with her and safe as much as comfort her. “How bad was it here?”

“It was mostly fine until last week, apart from worrying about you. But… By the time I’d gotten word about what happened in the market, Kally was in the Gallows and Darin… He fought the Templars, and they… Templars react sword first, as you’ve said before. He didn’t make it, and Tara was afraid of the girls’ magic to begin with.” She kissed along his jaw before burrowing farther into his embrace, reassuring herself he was back and safe. “She either turned Meeka out with a threat of calling the Templars, or she called the Templars and Meeka ran for us and here. Same difference, until I can talk to Tara without wanting to immoliate her over this. Not that I’ve had much chance.” She sighed, tucking the blankets a little farther up around the five year old’s shoulders.  “I managed to talk to Thrask, long enough to make sure Kally made it into that prison safe and wasn’t in immediate danger. I put her on the Underground’s list of mages to get out of there as soon as possible and I’ve been trying to settle Meeka enough… You being here helped, Amatus. It’s the first time she calmed that fast. Tomorrow, when she decides it was all her fault again, maybe having both of us…”

“Whether she tried to kick a five year old onto the street or hand her to the Templars… We’ll get through this, love. Meeka will eventually believe that it wasn’t her fault and that she’s safe with us, and we will get Kally out.” He toyed with the still frazzled ends of her shoulder length hair, trying to steady his mind between the chaos in Vimmark and the problems he had come home to. “We can manage with the girls, somehow.”

“That list of mages who need out of that circle was already long, beloved. I just… Thrask promised to make sure she was as safe as possible, to look out for her.” Fox laced her fingers with his for a moment, and rose to tend the pot of thick soup on the fire. 

“It’s a little worse when it’s one of ours, love,” Anders murmured, still sitting next to the cot. “It shouldn’t be, but… I was there when Kally was born, and Meeka, Rella, Soren. Those kids have been in and out of this clinic their whole lives. And ever since the girls started training with us, since they started spending so much time with us…”  He glanced over at the restlessly sleeping Meeka, quietly crossing the room to pull an embroidered pillow out of the faded pack he kept by the bed and tuck it under her. “We’ll get Kally out, love. Somehow.”

“I thought of several plans before you got home,  _ amatus _ .  Set up a big enough distraction, wait just long enough for most of the Templars to go investigate, lead as many of the mages out as will go, kill anyone who gets in the way. One good fire and they don’t have records or phylacteries anymore. I haven’t come up with a distraction that doesn’t involve counter productive levels of collateral damage yet, though. All my plans… If you weren’t coming back, I had nothing tying me here anymore.” Her fingers tightened around the ladle, and he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, whispering soothing things into her hair. 

  
  
  
  
  


“Has anyone seen Samson recently?” Fox asked, dropping into the chair next to Anders, fighting a yawn. The blond mage looked just as tired as she was, the pallor of his skin emphasized by the black feathers of his coat and the shadows under his eyes.  “Or Ser Thrask?”

Varric looked them both over, trying to hide his concern under flippancy. “You two look like shit, Snapdragon. Surrogate parenthood not going well?” 

“It would be better if we could assure the tiny person living in our clinic that her sister is still fine and well. Thrask was passing us messages out and keeping an eye on Kally, and we had almost gotten Meeka settled when all our Gallows contacts went quiet,” Anders grumbled, head falling forward onto his arms as Fox carded her fingers through his tangled hair.

“She’s terrified as is, that the Templars will get her, that Kally blames her for what happened, that she’s the monster her mother called her. I can pull her out of nightmares, but we still have to spend a while reassuring her and getting her back to sleep after she wakes up. We were making headway as long as we could let her know how her sister was, but… “  Fox leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes for a moment. “Doshiel’s watching her tonight. We’re heading out to check on some of the Underground later. It isn’t just the Gallows contacts that have started vanishing on us. Varric, if you have anything we can tap for this, I’d appreciate it.”

“I’ll ask around, but I hadn’t heard much lately that might account for th....” Varric started to shrug as he shuffled the cards, hesitating slightly as he noted the way Gerry and Fenris glanced at each other.

“Some of the Starkhaven blood mages kidnapped Carver last week, tried to use him to pressure me into helping with whatever insanity they were planning. Thrask was with them, but Grace killed him when he got cold feet.” Gerry explained with a dismissive flick of his hand, not looking at either of the other mages. “I did manage to talk Meredith and that adorable Knight captain... what’s his name, Calen? The one with the perfect damn ass.  Into taking Sampson back into the Order, since he helped us. He’ll be fine.” The scruffy Champion eventually looked back up as Anders drummed his fingers restlessly at the table, increasingly blue eyes fixed incredulously at the scruffy brunet. “What?”

Fox snorted bitterly, fingers sliding out of Anders’s hair to curl restrainingly at the collar of his coat. “Last week? Well, isn’t that… Warning would have been welcome, Fenris.” She rose, wincing a little before grabbing her staff back out from behind her chair. Without a word, the blond mage followed her out of the tavern.

“Warning about what? It wasn’t like we planned any of last week’s shenanigans.” Hawke muttered, still glancing between the door swinging back shut and the mug of mead they had left behind.  Fenris winced slightly before shrugging and drinking his wine with a last almost guilty look at the door. Farther down the table,Varric and Isabela shared a pained look before side eyeing Sebastian and Aveline, both of whom were studiously ignoring the empty seats at the table.

  
  


“So, everyone Sampson knew about is either dead, fled, or using enough blood magic to keep themselves safe. I can’t blame them for that anymore, but it really isn’t going to do anything for the image of mages around here. And Thrask’s death marks the last of the templars willing to work with us.” Anders tossed his staff into a corner, dropping back onto their bed.

“Doshiel said he cheated and helped Merrill encourage the Templars to forget her house existed. They’re still short some of the stuff he says they need for the mirror, so at least another couple weeks before I can go grab anything useful out of the Temple.” Fox flicked a hand, and his staff joined hers neatly on the rack with his coat.

“Cheated?” the blond asked, eyes still closed as he sprawled back with his feet off the edge of the bed. He could feel her settle next to him, and he mustered the energy to kick off his grime coated boots and crawl the rest of the way up onto the thin mattress. “I didn’t even realize he was a mage.”

“His phrasing, and I wouldn’t call him that to his face. Just because all elves in that time had magic doesn’t mean they were all fully trained in its use. My wanderer doesn’t like using magic outside enchanting and crafting work, he’s been weird about that for almost as long as I’ve known him.” the white haired elf snorted softly, already burrowing under the worn blanket. He pulled her closer, curling himself around her smaller form, and nuzzling at the base of her neck. “I’ve never been certain how much of that is based on respect for the purity of what techniques he does use and how much is because he just really likes hitting things with his maul.”

“Am I allowed to ask how the Sentinel you describe as your most reliable and loyal ended up with a nickname like ‘wanderer’?” the human healer wondered, hands sliding under the edge of her tunic for the comfort of having more of her skin against his.

“He went exploring and came very close to getting himself lost in one of the places between shortly after I acquired him. He was just a little bigger than Kally at the time, and… It’s how he ended up named Doshiel, ‘wanderer in the grey’. He was absolutely adorable before he got old enough the other Sentinels drilled protocol into him. I… He was the youngest of my so called strays.”  She rested her hand over his, snuggling back into the other mage, feeling him breathing against her back. “I can’t see a way out of this without bloodshed anymore. Without backup, even if I snuck into the Gallows, trying to smuggle out more mages isn’t possible without violence. Without losing entirely too many of them along the way when the Templars notice.”

“You’d need a distraction. Something big enough to pull most of the Templars away from the Gallows, keep them busy for an hour or so,” he mused, pressing soft, reassuring kisses along the top of her spine.

“Something they’d actually take notice of, since I’m not sure Meredith would raise a finger to help even if half of Kirkwall was on fire. Maybe if it was Hightown.” Fox sighed, staring at the cracks in the far wall. “I suppose setting the Chantry on fire might get her attention, but they might see the pattern if we do that every other week. I can’t see distractions staying a sustainable trick more than once or twice,  _ vhenan _ . And as terrified as most of the mages in the Circle here are...”

“For every one that leaps at the idea of freedom, there will be five too scared to risk what life they have for the chance. I know, love. There was a reason my escapes back in the Tower stood out so much.”  For the first time in a long while, he thought of Karl again. Of the years before their Harrowing the older boy had spent convincing him that even a life like theirs was precious, that there could be happiness in the middle of that stone prison. The joy of realizing they had both survived that pointless test. Waking to learn Karl had been shipped to another circle in the night, without warning or a chance for farewells. More than a decade of smuggled, illicit letters, with long gaps between wondering if the other was still alive to respond.  Finding himself in Kirkwall with the refugees, and hoping he could finally get Karl free, only to find him made Tranquil, used as bait by Templars who had found his most recent messages.

 “We’ll figure this out,  _ amatus _ . There is a solution somewhere, even if it might not be what we hope for.” Fox ran her fingers up along his arm, lyrium flickering like heat lightning along her skin and pulling Justice a little more to the surface, and he relaxed against her.  Any templar that tried to take her on would find they had taken a dragon by the tail in short order. They would still be a danger to the mages she was leading in enough numbers, but…  

“More destructive than dragon fire…” he murmured, the pages from an old book hidden in the Tower library coming to his mind. The elf still curled in his arms made an inquisitive little hum, still tracing lines over his skin. “Something I read once, love. It involved charcoal, drakestone, lyrium salts, and something called _ sela petrae _ . If I could find all of that and make it… We’d have our distraction, to say the least.” 

“ _ Sela petrae _ ? It’s the crystalline deposits growing on half the walls down here. Some kind of salt, if I remember from alchemy lessons. Rather volatile.”  She rolled into him, flattening her hands against his chest. “We’d still need a way to convince the mages that freedom is worth the risk. Unless Meredith pulls something drastic, the frogs are going to stay in the pot until they boil.”


	28. Doshiel

“Something wrong,  _ da’eralan _ ?” Doshiel asked, setting down his tools to watch Merrill pace her small house. 

“Fox is even shorter than I am. Why am I always the kitten or the little mage?” The green eyed mage stopped, rubbing her arms as she turned to look at the much older elf. The corner of his lip turned up in fond amusement, even as he spread his hands placatingly.

“Herself remains precisely the size that amuses her the best, really. And only she could answer for why, little... Merrill.” He ran a nervous hand back through short, almost gingery hair, trying to put words to the thoughts running through his mind. “By older standards, you… You are still a creature of rare potential and genius, even if the same might not be said for many of your fellow… modern  _ elvhen _ . A clever kitten who might grow into a dangerous cat, someone who could reach the level of one of our better mages.”

She frowned at him, still rubbing at her arms, tracing the lines of fading scars. “You say that like you don’t think much of my people, of my clan. We are trying to keep the old ways, to learn more of our history.”

“Your ‘Keeper’ is afraid of you fixing a single  _ Eluvian _ , using one of the earliest forms of magic. I… I perhaps haven’t seen your people in the best light yet, but... I do think much of you.” Dark eyes met green for a lingering moment, before he shook his head, turning back to the mirror. “As does Herself, clearly. Maybe if we can fix this to start, we could begin to teach your people more of what was forgotten, help them learn to be elves again.”

“You’ve said a little, but what was it really like?  _ Arlathan _ , the gods walking among you…” Merrill asked, snapping some mint out of her small collection of potted herbs and starting the kettle going. 

“Beautiful, awe inspiring, and dangerous beyond measure.” He leaned against the table, turning a tool around in his hands. “The least of us were still better fed and sheltered than those I have seen here, but most elvhen… we served. The weak served the stronger served the stronger yet, with the nobles and the _ Evanuris _ at the top of the ladder. Those who served the  _ Evanuris _ technically outranked even the highest nobles, at least in so far as we obeyed none but them, and many poor families… Giving a child to a temple meant securing their future for as long as they lived.  But serving the  _ Evanuris _ was… it was never a safe way to live. To be Godfavored was to exist at their whim, to put your life in their hands.”  His family had given him to the Temple of  _ June _ as soon as he had been weaned, and had lost contact even before he had invoked the craft god’s ire by breaking a treasure intended for the Hearthkeeper. Old enough to have known that reaching to touch the glittering disc was forbidden, far too young to resist the temptation. That  _ Sylaise _ had intervened, had asked for him as a replacement present was the only thing that had saved his life.

She had indulged him to the point of absurdity in his first years with her. He had feared to leave the presumed safety of her presence at first.  _ Sylaise _ allowed him to stay with her as a cosseted pet instead of turning him over to the Sentinels in charge of training her newest servants. Doshiel had gone everywhere with her, eating at her table, sleeping on a cot in her quarters. He had been granted any training or lesson that took his fancy. Most of his days had ended sitting at her feet, babbling nonsense about his day as she petted his hair and read through reports and papers. If he closed his eyes, he could still remember the amused look she had worn when he dared to present her with his earliest crafting and enchanting projects as if they were worthwhile treasures. When he had fearlessly called her his ‘ _ Mamae _ Halisa’ and climbed into her lap as she dealt with petitioners.

It had been when he had started formal weapon training that the older Sentinels had begun drilling him on the protocol that he had disregarded in his youth. He had set himself to learning all of it, to become a Sentinel worthy of the indulgences he had been allowed. To redeem himself from the familiarity he had been guilty of. It had taken centuries, but he had climbed back up the ranks, established himself as one of her Firsts, as her Champion.

“She never really seems like… Well I saw her lose her temper once when Anders was hurt, and it was terrifying, but…” Merrill had a thoughtful look on her face, as she poured them both tea. “Audacity won’t tell me anything else about her, not worth the risk, he says. He… I think he’s afraid of her. He barely talks to me at all, ever since...”

“She’s fond of you, of this place. Halisa is… going out of her way to shield her presence, to blend in among your people. She isn’t drawing on all the power she has access to, she’s muffling her influence on those around her and she’s keeping the rest of her Sentinels… at arm’s length. I’m not sure she knows how to deal with having us anymore.” He took the offered mug, chilling it just enough. “If her temper scared you, be grateful you’re dealing with her and not some of the others.  _ Falon’din _ and _ Andruil _ routinely killed their own followers over nothing at all, just on a whim.  _ Elgar’nan _ once destroyed an entire village because someone walked through his shadow..  _ Mythal _ usually kept him in check, but…”

The Dalish first frowned, rubbing at the stylized halla horns tattooed across her face. “This… The way you speak of our Creators, it… It’s hard to think of. Our stories…”

“They did incredible things, do not doubt it. They were as beyond us as a tiger is to a housecat,  _ Vherlin _ , and the world trembled where they walked. To step into their presence was to bask in the glory and power they exuded with every breathe. While they walked among us, our people… we ruled the world, and all that we desired could be ours.” Doshiel stared into the dark liquid, lost for a moment in memories. “They were beside us and beyond us, and to have their gaze fall upon you, to catch their attention… It meant either glory beyond your wildest dreams or death.  You only looked for it if you had nothing else to lose.  _ Mythal _ always tried to deal fairly with those willing to go before her.  _ Sylaise _ offered healing to any brave enough to ask for it, protected those who were hers, but...  Your stories… They gloss over that, the scale of dealing with creatures that could rewrite the laws of reality with a careless thought.”

She was still tracing the lines of her  _ Vallaslin _ , still trying to piece a puzzle out of thoughts that wouldn’t fit where they should. “What about  _ Ghil’anan _ ? You haven’t mentioned her.” 

He winced noticeably, looking away from those expressive, earnest green eyes framed by that  _ Evanuris _ ’ markings. “She was one of  _ Andruil _ ’s favored, eventually given the chance to try for ascension, as Elgar’nan had offered to his apprentice  _ June _ and  _ Mythal _ had her favorite, to… to  _ Fen’harel _ .” Merrill’s eyes widened even farther at that, the mug falling from her hands. “She was a master of fleshwarping, making countless creatures both beautiful and terrible, generally as presents for  _ Andruil _ to hunt. She sacrificed all but the halla to raise herself and take an  _ Evanuris _ ’s wings, then restarted her experiments in her own temple. With her own people.” Her knees wobbled, and he caught her as she started to fall. Before she could say anything, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, holding her tight. “I am sorry. I wish this was easier for you, that your people hadn’t lost so much of our history.”

“Our creators… they can’t be…” Merrill stared at the slowly swirling surface of the  _ Eluvian _ .  “That’s why she said that stories change. That it didn’t mean what I thought it meant. The Creators won’t return if we prove we’re elfy enough, will they? Even if we were still elves at all by their reckoning. And even if they did...”

“It took millennia for our Temple to figure out a ritual that had any chance of working for  _ Sylaise _ , to open a wide enough crack a fragment of her could pull the rest of her power through. Even that worked nothing like we had intended. She was supposed to return into the Temple, to know what we had done for her.” The soft shoulders under his arms stopped trembling, and he released her, pulling back self consciously. “In retrospect, this is probably the better result, as little as anyone back in the Temple will agree. She’s actually… You are one of the  _ elvhen _ , no matter what the other Sentinels might believe.  Your people are lost, but not irreparably broken.”

“You think I’m broken?” She looked back at the older elf, who winced again, but shook his head, hauling himself back to his feet. 

“Not you,  _ da’era’lan _ . Never you. Some of our people…. The very idea of elves without magic is wrong, Merrill. It goes against everything that made us elves. That so many of your people… I’ve listened to the ones who live in this… Alienage, some of them are proud to be free of what should be their birthright. They fear the very idea enough to cast out their own children, to dismiss what should be the most precious gift they are given. To fear as simple a thing as a child’s first magic… Anders is closer to what an elf should be than they are. Even your clan… They cast you out for daring to try,  _ Vherlin. _ You.  Brilliant, clever, beautiful, lovable you.”  The green eyed elf tilted her head at that, flushing as she blinked at the suddenly embarrassed Sentinel. 

 

  
  


“Hawke, all you have to do is make it look good. Tell him you’re sick of dealing with me, that you need the gold for something.”  Isabela dropped back onto her bed, reaching for the bottle of wine that had rolled under the edge. “Be honest, haven’t you ever just wanted to slap me?”

“Yes,” a trio of voices said in unison from the doorway. Varric looked up at the disgruntled looks Anders and Fenris shot each other, chuckling under his breath. “Is that a trick question?” Sebastian asked, making a show of counting his arrows.

“I wasn’t asking any of you!” the pirate snapped, huffing as she tossed the wine back onto the table. 

“Face it, Rivaini. You set yourself up too well for that one.” the dwarf laughed. “Are you sure the best way to find Castillion is using you as bait? It seems risky. What if Velasco decides he’d rather hand you over dead? What if Snowflake loses the trail after we hand you over?”

“Well, it’s not like Gerry’s going to be alone tracking us. Do you have any better ideas on how to find his hideout? Maybe I could challenge Velasco to a game of riddles and make ‘where’s your boss’ one of the questions.” She pushed back to her feet, pacing past the chair Hawke had claimed when they reached her room. 

“We could just hurt him until he tells us everything he knows.” Fenris leaned against the wall looking bored. “Anders could probably keep him from dying long enough.” On the other side of the doorway, the blond mage looked over indignantly, the blue ring of his eyes brightening. “And if he happens to die in the end, one less slaver in the world is hardly a loss.”

“I… As regrettable as the idea of using my talents to help torture someone is, the.. Fenris has a point.” Anders tapped his fingers along his staff, thoughtfully. “Isabela, if you’re that insistent on allowing yourself to be captured and dragged who knows where, would you at least let me go get Fox? You could probably hide a fennec down the front of that top, and you wouldn’t be completely alone if things went wrong.” 

“Blondie, I like how your first plan involves shoving your girlfriend down Rivaini’s shirt, I really do,” Varric snorted, clapping the taller man on the back. Anders flushed, the red only brightening when he noticed the speculative manner Isabela was measuring her exposed cleavage with. “Let’s save that idea for some adventure that doesn’t mean sending both the girls into a pile of ruthless slavers. Only worse idea would be sending Daisy in with them.”

“Merrill’s been doing much better lately,” Gerry pointed out. “She hasn’t gotten lost or been caught picking flowers out of the hightown gardens in weeks. She hasn’t even come looking for help with that demon spawned mirror in months. I’m not entirely sure what’s gotten into her, but it’s an improvement.”

“If what’s getting into her stops being an improvement, I’ll cut his balls off,” Isabela muttered, smirking slightly at Anders’ soft snort. “Anders, you and the foxkit have enough on your plate right now, as good in a fight as she is. It’s enough that you’re willing to help with this, without pulling both of you away from the clinic. Gerry’s plan will work, if we can sell it right. Velasco is usually in the Blooming Rose around this time, enjoying it’s many splendors.”

“Keeping Fox’s best friend safe while ridding the city of a dangerous slaver? We’d never miss that, Isabela.” The blue wrapped around the edges of his eyes flickered, glowing in a warmer manner than she was used to seeing. “But understand I will be invoking your name when the Firefox finds out I was in the brothel.”

“I’m somewhat impressed you would prioritize dealing with slavers.” Fenris dropped back as Gerard led Isabela into the Rose and put on his best attempt at a treacherous smile. He wasn’t succeeding that well, and the warrior knew if the Champion saw the smiles he and Varric wore, any attempt of pulling this off was gone. “Given how fond you claim to be of Tevinter and all.”

“I am well aware of the shortcomings of your homeland. Tevinter’s method of training mages is admirable, even if very little else is. I just… I’m allowed to deal with the injustice in my own home first, help my own people.” Anders sighed, shoving a loose strand of hair behind his ear.  “And the people the slavers prey on first around here are the desperate and the lost, the refugees and the elves that my clinic helps. These are my people as much as yours, Fenris.”

“Yes, you were so helpful when that bloodmage killed his wife in the alienage, after escaping the Gallows,” Fenris remarked, rolling his eyes.

“I regret what happened to Nyssa, but Huon would not have been pushed to that if the Templars hadn’t… “ Anders stopped, shaking his head and pushing the strand of hair back out of his face. “Forget it. I’ve had this conversation with you. Repeatedly. As has Fox, and if you won’t accept her word about the comparisons, I doubt you will believe anyone. All this will get me is you making snide remarks and Varric telling me how sick he is of hearing about mages and Templars.” He strode further into the lavish building, focused on the room Gerry and Isabela had vanished into.

“You actually got Blondie to shut up without a rant about mage oppression. I’m impressed, Broody.” Varric shrugged, shifting his crossbow and counting bolts. “Worried, but impressed.”

  
  


A terrified, scantily clad elven girl scrambled out of the room a moment later, drunken curses about “skittish bitches” following her. A few short minutes later, a lurching pirate swaggered out, dragging a bruised, defeated looking Isabela over to the men drinking at the table by the door. Gerry followed, making a show of counting the gold in his hand and trying to smirk at them. 

“Well, I think they took the bait, after she spat in my face and I hit her. She said before that she’d leave us a trail,” he told the others as they waited for the pirate and hired muscle to leave the brothel.

Sebastian rejoined them outside, clearly embarrassed at the idea of even being near a whorehouse. They soon found Isabela had been as good as her word on that, a clear trail of scuff marks and dropped bits of her assortment of jewelry leading all the way from the Blooming Rose to the docks. Varric made careful work of the multitude of traps blocking the entrance to the warehouse, and they crept as quietly as possible to the railing overlooking the lower floor. 

“I’m sure we could come to some arrangement, Isabela. As pleasant a surprise as your delivery was, it did interrupt my private time. If you’d be so good as to make up for that, I’ll ask Castillion to go easy on you.”  Velasco leered at the bound pirate, going so far as to tilt her face up to his. 

Isabela pulled herself out of his grasp easily, sneering up at him. “Contrary to popular belief, I do have standards, Velasco.”

His face twisted in rage and disbelief. “You’ll do whatever I want, little whore. I own you now.”

The Rivaini pirate smirked up at him, her eyes shifting slightly as she noticed the movement at the top of the stairs. “Are you sure about that?”

 

A few frantic moments later, she rubbed the rope marks back off her wrists, idly digging through the dead man’s pockets. Finding a worn brass key, she scrambled up the stairs to explore the locked office. Anders brushed a healing spell over the others, pulling his tunic off to see how much damage the unexpected flame trap at the bottom of the stairs had done.  The worn linen was pretty much unsalvageable, lacking the enchantments Fox had woven into his black coat. The blond mage crumpled the tunic and tossed it aside, attempting to brush the worst of the char out of the feathered pauldrons of his coat. Shaking a bit more soot to the floor, he turned to notice half the party staring at him. “What did I do now?” 

“What in the Maker’s name happened to your back, Blondie?” Varric asked, eyes wide.

“Those are whip scars,” Fenris remarked, almost under his breath. “Those are all whip scars, except for.. Old whip scars.”

“The freshest ones are actually from a knife, thank you.” Anders finished sliding the wool lined leather back over his shoulders, shrugging self consciously. “But yes, yes, they are, Fenris. Amazing deduction. I think I’ll go see what Isabela has managed to find up there.”

“You’re not going to tell us how you got that many scars? There has to be some kind of story there, Blondie.” Varric pushed, as the healer headed up the stairs.

“I lived in Kinhold Circle and I’ve never been very good at obedience. There is no fancy story about these, Varric.”  Anders paused at the top of the stairs, looking back at the edge of realization on the dwarf’s face, on Fenris’s. “Most mages in the tower had just as many scars as I do. My Warden Commander has more, probably because he shares Gerry’s habit of speaking his mind. And I’m done trying to explain this to you. You don’t want to hear anymore about mage oppression, remember? I have no evidence for anything I claim.” 

“I… Perhaps your old Circle was that harsh, but Elthina would never allow..” Sebastian started, scrambling up the stairs after the mage.

“I’m done, Vael. Believe what you want.” He stepped into the office, letting the door slam in the exiled princes’ face.


	29. One last breath before the plunge

He took a deep breath, and the too familiar walls faded out, replaced with bright sunlight over white tile. There was a marble walled pond, filled with flowering floating plants and flickers of fast swimming fish. Blossoming trees ranged themselves around the path, shimmering in an uncertain sort of color as he tried to remember more of the pictures from his books. A distinctive skyline grew at the edges of his vision, then reshaped itself, as the trees shifted into fantastical colors and mosaic tiles swept along the path. He could see terraces floating in the green Fade sky above him, towers and palaces of blue crystal glass erupting all around outside the vividly green garden he stood in. Anders turned slowly, admiring the view as it all solidified out of the Fade, and smiled at the tall woman in shimmering robes sitting by the fountain. 

She tipped her head to regard him carefully, the ends of her silver flaming hair sizzling as they brushed against the water, the aquamarine of her eyes brighter than usual against the ink dark slit pupils. Cat eyes… dragon eyes, he corrected himself. The sunlight sparkled off the flowing water and the delicate tracery of scales along her brow and jaw, the too sharp nails tapping restlessly against the stone wall.

“I don’t think this is a replica of Minrathous anymore,” the blond remarked, still drinking in the sight of her. Even from several paces away, he could feel the magic radiating off her like heat from a bonfire, almost painful to his senses. “I used to spend hours reading every book we had in the tower, trying to rebuild it in my dreams. This is more… magical. It’s beautiful, love.” He forced himself to take another step into that flaring aura of magic, ignoring the part of his mind screaming about the danger he was in. When he sat gingerly in the open space beside her, she smiled at him with only a hint of fangs, and the oppressive aura shifted abruptly to something far more welcoming. “As are you, as always. Even when you’re taller than usual.”

“ _ Eanvher _ . My brave little griffon,” Fox... _ Sylaise _ , rather, chuckled, reaching out to run her fingers over his cheek, claws barely brushing his skin. “I should apologize for usurping your dream. I was feeling homesick, more or less.” She leaned back, making a halfhearted attempt to catch the trailing, diaphanous tail of one of the fish. “I was just going to make it more like Minrathous than your imaginings, but I misjudged what I was homesick for.”

“This is  _ Arlathan _ , then?” The thin mage surveyed the surroundings again, watching the floating terraces drift by. “A world built entirely on magic. It’s something to think of, given how badly life is going in Kirkwall right now.”  A wing of glittering scales and translucent flame arched over him, protectively, and he leaned into her side, basking in the feeling of sheltered safety.  _ Sylaise _ turned more to him, and he ended pillowed against her chest, clawed fingers carding soothingly through his hair. “I… Justice knows enough of how it ended, when your siblings ran mad and you didn’t think to try to stop them. You know his lectures as well as I do. Just… tell me a pretty story, of how it would have been, please?” As endearing as the diminutive form he was used to was, as entertaining as it was to wrap his arms around her slim shoulders and rest his head easily on hers, there was a deep comfort in curling against this larger form, her aura tangible around them.  It cut through the ambivalences and rationalizations his mind spun about the differences in their power with the flat truth that she was better at almost everything he had once prided himself on. And it didn’t matter, except that she loved him as fiercely as he did her, was willing to delay some of her own plans to help his goals. To protect him, even against all the world. 

“What is the Fade for, if not a place for pretty dreams,  _ vhenan _ ?” She brushed a hand down his spine, and his worn tunic shifted into something sheer and silken. “A pretty dream where my family was what we claimed to be, all of the power without the destruction we crawled through to get there. Unending glory without the effort of ignoring our responsibilities.” As slender fingers walked back up his spine, bright stoned bangles wrapped around his wrists. Jeweled wires coiled around his ankles, the old piercings in his ears filled with new baubles. “One where you are my favorite, my most precious consort. Anything you desired would be yours, as long as you were mine.”  Her hand paused at the back of his neck, and a heavy, ornate band of metal started to wrap around his throat, only to vanish without ever truly solidifying. “That… not even in a dream, my heart. I…” She leaned forward, pressing her lips to his forehead, leaving his hair caught behind a braided silver circlet. “You at my side and all the world at our feet, until the sun burns from the sky and the stars go out, because you are mine and I am yours and nothing else matters.” 

The courtyard around them blurred, becoming a luxurious bedroom scaled to a dragon’s size, filled with rich furnishings and bright trinkets. Sylaise looked up, surveying the room with a wry smile. “You would be bored to death in a month, vhenan. As would I, even with you at my side. As I usually was.” She tipped his face up to hers, kissing him fiercely, lingeringly. When he opened his eyes, the bedroom had faded. Sylaise had shrunk back into the familiar form he knew, fire singed hair tumbled around her long ears, arms still around his neck as she grinned up at him.

They were sitting on a rough stone bench, gnarled fruit trees growing in rows behind them. At the end of the gravel path they sat at, a tidy looking, if somewhat large, stone cottage stood, nestled behind a neatly fenced herb garden.  Chickens picked their way over the yard between the house and a small, whitewashed barn, where a picketed goat nibbled sullenly at weeds and an orange tabby washed its face. “This does seem more like us, Foxlove. I thought you were homesick?”

“Perhaps there is no cure for homesickness like remembering exactly what home was like,  _ vhenan _ .”  Fox wrinkled her nose up at him, reaching up to bat at the golden hoops still running through his ear.  The melody of laughing children echoed, and he caught a flash of blonde and ginger hair through the orchard. “This is better. This, we could build for them.”

“For them and for us, and for all the others.” Anders stretched himself over the bench, letting Fox settle his head into her lap. “I almost have the recipe down. We just need the right moment, a good plan…”

  
  
  
  


“Hawke? I… I’ve ended up in the middle of a problem project. Help me get a few of the ingredients I need, and I swear I’ll never bother you about the oppressed mages in this city again.” Anders was leaning against Gerry’s desk, trying not to calculate exactly how much everything in the manor library was worth.  How much help for the clinic and Lowtown a single day’s upkeep here could buy. It didn’t matter any more. Not with what Fox’s last shapeshifted foray into the Gallows had turned up.

“Anders, I have enough people banging on my door with requests that the Champion help them with this of that without trying to deal with whatever you’ve dreamed up.”  Gerry continued pawing through paperwork, eventually rolling his eyes and looking up when he realized Anders hadn’t moved. “I have Aveline nagging at me because I let Isabela blackmail that slaver out of his ship instead of turning him in or killing him, with Fenris backing her, Sebastian whining about whether he should go take his city back, crazy Orlesian songbirds insisting the Grand Cleric is in danger and needs to flee to Val Royeaux, and Isabela trying to get me to meddle in Antivan politics over a former lover. Friend. Whatever. There are fucking assasins in Antiva, I’m staying out of it.” He riffled pointedly through the stack of correspondence. “Whatever you’ve managed to bring down on your head, you can fix it on your own.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Isabela talked Fox into helping with her friend. Charming fellow, friend of my Warden Commander’s from the blight. He had a disagreement with some of his former associates about whether he was returning to their employ.” The blond mage smiled faintly, the look in his eyes as he kept watching the smaller mage unchanging. “If I go and get it myself, do you mind if I take some drakestone from that old mine you got tricked into buying? I promise not to bother you again, and I’d even clear it out if it’s infested with dragonlings again. Maybe someday you’ll be able to convince people to work there again.” 

“Sure, fine. Tell your Fox thanks for helping out ‘bela. One less thing off my back. I’m going to go figure out if a shiny new sword, abject apologies, and unlimited sexual favors will convince Fen to forgive me. I didn’t think letting Isabela have her way on that through as much as I should have.” Gerry waved the other mage off dismissively.

“As little as I like agreeing with that feral dog about anything, he had a point, Hawke. Castillion was well into planning a vast expansion of his slaving business, based off the sale of the refugees and elves he’d already stolen. Not all of his victims were from Kirkwall, but.. He was responsible for so much wrong here already, and you turned him loose with a ‘go forth and sin no more’. Because Isabela decided blackmailing her former associate for his pretty ship was better than killing him and taking it. Better enough to justify the fact he’s going to start his shit up somewhere else.” Anders snapped, regretting the effort the moment he saw the mulish, sullen pout Hawke turned on him.

“Well, it's done and he’s long gone. Go whine at Isabela if this bothers you so much, just get out of my fucking house.” Gerry retorted, leaning back in his chair. “Maybe I should have told Sebastian he could turn you in after all. I considered it after the Ella incident. You really don’t have any room to start on me when the demon in your head has already killed one mage, barely more than a kid!”

Anders took a step forward without thinking, eyes flaring and the blue light flickering under his skin. “You condemned a boy to tranquility because it was easier than showing him how to fight his demons. You condemn the Templars, but would never take a step out of your way to protect anyone else from them! If they had gotten their hands on Bethany, would you have still left her to her fate?”

The inkwell Hawke had been using shattered against the wall, inches from the healer’s head, and he stood, glaring daggers at the blond. “Don’t you dare bring my sister into this. You never even met her, no matter how many stories my mother told you. She died, not because of any Templars, but because your precious Wardens failed. If they had succeeded at Ostagar, we wouldn’t have been trapped in the middle of the damn horde, and Bethy wouldn’t… We wouldn’t… Get out, Anders.”

The lean mage spun on his heels with a final mocking bow, stepping warily around the odd little dwarf in the doorway. “Even bound to the Stone and pledged to justice, the daughter of the sun is still the daughter of the sun,” Sandal remarked, fidgeting with a half carved runestone, and both mages spared him a briefly puzzled glance before the healer let himself out.


	30. No Compromise.

The last of the former Starkhaven mages slunk down a dark hall, trying not to catch the eyes of any on the Templars. They had been increasingly smug lately. Smug like the vanished knight lieutenant used to be, when the door shut behind him on his visits to Alain’s room. Karras had been missing for years now, and none of the other Templars seemed inclined to take the same notice of the young mage. But the continued blessed emptiness of his cell of a room didn’t quite block out the pleading he could hear from down the hall. Not that crying was ever an unusual sound in the Gallows. 

A soft thump, and a silvery striped cat dropped down onto the ledge of a nearby window, landing neatly between the metal spikes that adorned the sill. It leapt into the hall, stretching dramatically, tilting its head and flicking its ears inquisitively. With a final ear flick, it headed straight for the apprentice barracks, following the soft sounds of miserable children. Curious despite himself, Alain followed. The tabby pawed the door open, beelining for a sobbing blonde and headbutting her consolingly. The little elven girl, one of the youngest and most recent additions to the Gallows, clutched at the cat like a lifeline. When she had managed to get herself under control, the cat pried herself out of the apprentice’s hands.

And in a flash of white light, shifted into a silver haired elven woman. “Shh, Shh, it’ll be alright, Kally,” she whispered, pulling the girl into a protective embrace.   

“Auntie Fox! Ser Will told Becka we’re all gonna die!” Kally clung to the older mage desperately, as some of the older apprentices leaned over the sides of their bunks to watch. “Is Meeka okay? An’ Rella n’ Soren?”

“Meeka’s at the clinic, she’s fine. Rella and Soren are still with your mother, they seem well.” The pale haired elf pressed a soft kiss to the girl’s forehead, surveying the room and counting the other mage children. “It’s Alain, isn’t it?” She remarked, flicking a glance at the older mage standing in the doorway, who nodded. “I need to speak with Orsino, possibly the other Senior Enchanters.”

“I… I think the First Enchanter is trying to meet with the Knight Commander again. I heard something about him thinking she went too far with some of the newest rules.” A dark haired girl in the same blue apprentice robes as the others, awkwardly pretty in the way of early adolescence, spoke up, stepping shyly to the young blonde’s side. “I shouldn’t have told Kally about what Ser Will said, but…”

“Start packing.” Fox announced, her jaw tensing as she surveyed the room again. The apprentices stared at her, and she sighed. “If you have anything you want to keep, get it packed. But don’t go overboard, it’s going to be a long trip, and whatever you bring you’ll have to carry. Just be ready to leave after the signal, and stay here until I get back.”

“Auntie Fox, what signal?” Kally asked, even as some of the other children half fell from their bunks. “What about the Templars?” someone asked. “Where are we going?”  The room seemed split between the apprentices already digging through open boxes to sort their things and the ones lost staring at the older mages. 

“We’ll handle the Templars, we’re going somewhere safe, and you’ll figure out the signal when it happens.” Fox soothed vaguely, giving Kally one more hug. “Alain, if you’d show me the way?”

“The First Enchanter is already on his way out. He’s to have a meeting with the Grand Cleric today, hopefully with the Champion in tow to convince her to actually deal with Meredith.” The elderly mage explained when they made it to the Senior Enchanters’ office.

“Good luck with that,” Fox snorted softly. “Send a runner, tell him she’s gone farther than he knows, that the Underground is already moving, and he’ll know the signal when he sees it.” When the runner was out of the room, she sighed, bracing herself on the desk.  “She’s sent for the Right of Annulment. Elthina quavelled at the idea and wouldn’t sign, so Meredith sent it to Val Royeaux instead. The Divine might approve it, she might not, but this would not be..”

“It wouldn’t be the first time a Knight Commander got permission after the slaughter was already over. If we’re already dead, it doesn’t matter if she has the writ signed before or after, and the other Templars won’t question her.” The lone female in the group of circle mages sighed, raking a hand back though a short curly mop of salt and pepper hair.

“That Ferelden boy she made Knight Captain might. He won’t stop her, but he’d at least question her going against protocol.” the youngest of the senior Enchanters shrugged, grey eyes fixed on the cluttered surface of the desk. “That said, if… It would explain why so many of her favorite idiots are smirking at us like they have been, if they know, why they’re toying with the older apprentices so openly. I’ve had to deal with so many… You’re sure about this, Tevinter?”

“Dead certain. I’ve not leaving any of the children to their nonexistent mercy, much less mine. The last of the Underground has a distraction set up for later today. It should keep the Templars busy for a few hours, giving us time to get well started out through the tunnels, and there are a few safehouses outside the city willing to take you in for a bit.” She pulled out a tattered, complicated map. “I’d suggest warning as many mages as you trust not to spill the tale to the Templars still here, give them time to pack and get ready to leave when the moment comes”

“These plans are all very well and good, but even the apprentices have phylacteries in the vault. Run as far as you like with them, the Templars can track them right back down.” The oldest Enchanter pointed out, drumming his fingers on the desk nervously. 

 Fox smiled grimly, and the female enchanter snorted. “Except this is the only circle with a bad enough runaway problem that our leashes are kept in house, where they can collect them without begging aid of another barracks. Our phylacteries are here, even if they are still kept far enough into the Templar side of the Gallows to be out of our reach.”

“Leave that to me and the underground. We have planned for that, but…” The elven mage spread her hands noncommittally, and the younger Enchanters nodded. 

“Better if we don’t know, should things go wrong. Same reason you aren’t telling us any details about the distraction, or the signal to move.”  the tousled, sandy haired mage sighed as the apostate nodded, looking meaningfully at the other two. “I’ll spread the word around to be ready as much as I can. The Libertarians, those of us who are left, will follow you. I can’t say as much for the Loyalists.”

Gerard Hawke rubbed at his temples as the pair squabbled. He was never sure which of them he hated more, the insane, paranoid Knight Captain or the shrill, self important First Enchanter who kept demanding he help the other mages. It was bad enough hearing that bullshit from Anders and Sebastian, without being dragged into the petty games those two played against each other.  At least Fenris understood he had to protect himself first.

Maybe the fact he had been dragged into this again would convince Elthina to do something more than make vague excuses of neutrality and lack of authority. Even he knew that was empty. Short of dragging this mess in front of the Divine or the Maker himself, she was the only one with the authority to bring that pair up short. Rein the admittedly crazy Meredith in, call the Seekers back and make them at least try to keep the Templars in line, force Orsino to admit how far the circle was falling, how many of his people were dealing with demons and blood magic.  Make the Templars drop martial law and allow the nobles to appoint a new Viscount.

He doubted it. The Grand Cleric was far too attached with the appearance of saintliness and the maintenance of the status quo, ignoring the fact the status quo was deteriorating day by day. She wouldn’t even help Sebastian retake his city or allow him back in as a lay brother, despite the number of times he had gone to her for advice. 

Orsino muttered something under his breath as they neared the Chantry steps, and Meredith glowered, raising a hand for a casual blow before she remembered where they were. “I’ll remember that comment when we get back to the Gallows, mage,” she retorted in a low voice.

“I’m sure you will.” Orsino agreed, pushing his dark grey hair back behind his pointed ears, thinking about the message the runner had given him from the last of the underground. It galled, slightly, the idea of spending decades trying to protect his people, only to end up relying on a pack of apostates. Which wasn’t entirely fair, given all the healers had done for his people, but…  Maker help them all if the message meant what he feared it did. “I’m aware of your feelings about mages, Knight Commander. But to constrain us as you do, to let… You might as well let us all be drowned at birth!”

“Not that bad an idea,” she muttered, eyeing the pacing Champion ahead of them. “I will have the Gallows searched from top to bottom, Orsino. I know there are more blood mages, and that you are protecting them!”

“Where don’t you see blood magic, Commander? My people sneeze and you accuse them of corruption, and all the while refusing to deal with the sadists in your ranks!” The old elven mage drew himself up, trying not to cringe back from the Templars.  “I will not let you brand us all as villains.”

“I am protecting this city and your people from your curse and their own stupidity. Do not label me a tyrant unless you have a better method!” She shot another brief glare at the scruffy Champion and the cluster of disreputable layabouts he surrounded himself with. “Every year, we find more maleficar and abominations on the streets, First Enchanter. Every day, Kirkwall falls further from grace. Though it breaks my heart, I must steel myself to wield a heavy enough hand to bring us back to the light.”

“If you two keep carrying on like this, people are going to talk. You’re like an extra vicious married couple,” Gerry remarked, hearing Varric and Fenris snicker behind him, even as Aveline and Sebastian aimed their best disappointed looks at him. It was looking to be an interesting day, one he was very glad Merrill was nowhere near. The girl might be just stupid enough to expose herself as one of the city blood mages, as little trouble as she had caused lately.

“Everything that has gone wrong has done so since you took over the Circle, Meredith. You go too far, and we will see what the Grand Cleric has to say about your latest outrage,” Orsino insisted, turning to head up the stairs.

An armored gauntlet dug into his wrist as Meredith grabbed him. “You will not bring her Grace into your petty…”

“The Grand Cleric won’t be able to help you.” Anders announced, strolling nonchalantly down the steps, staff in hand. The Knight Commander abruptly released the First Enchanter, stepping forward to face the apostate.

“Explain yourself, mage!” she hissed,attempting to loom over the black robed healer, whose grip tightened slightly around the silvery braid wrapped around his off hand.

“I will not stand by and watch you treat all mages like criminals, while those who claim to lead us bow before their Templar jailors,” He told her, head high as he stared steadily at the Knight Commander. Orsino spluttered protestations, and Anders cut him off. “The circles have failed us, Orsino. Even you can see that,” he insisted sorrowfully, the blue of his eyes brightening, his voice gaining a ringing echo of Justice. “The time has more than come to act. There can be no half measures.”

“What did you do, Anders?” Hawke asked, eyes wide and a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The blond mage glanced at him, dismissively, before focusing back on Meredith. “Anders, damn you, what did you do!?”  There was a rumbling sound from the massive Chantry cathedral behind them, and the healer stepped around the Knight Commander, making his way to the foot of the stairs in the same nonchalant manner he had started down them.

“There can be no turning back.” He finally answered the man he had once considered a friend, and turned to watch the red light burst forth from the top floors of the Chantry, flinching slightly at the all too brief frightened cries of the Templars and priests inside. The building split apart, imploding on itself before bursting out with a shock wave that shook the ground under his feet, raining bits of dust and small debris over all of Hightown. If we must have a distraction that big, make it mean something, he remembered saying, and ran his thumb over the braid of hair wrapped around his palm. Make it a statement. The more time the Templars spent dealing with this, the longer Fox had to get as many mages out as possible. “There can be no peace.”

Sebastian scrambled forward, falling to his knees before the wreckage of the stairs. “Elthina, no. Maker, no, she was your most faithful, your best beloved… We told her to go to Val Royeaux, I told her… Why didn’t she listen to me?”  He dragged his fingers through the falling layers of dust and ash, tears streaking trails down his cheeks. “Blessed be the souls of the faithful, that they ascend to your right hand.”

Orsino pulled farther away from the Templars, grabbing at the feathered edges of Anders coat. “Why? Why would you do such a thing?”

“I removed the chance of compromise, because there is no compromise,” he replied, still staring at the ruins. “Our people’s lives can’t continue to be the subject of polite debate. At least this way we have a chance, we might be able to fight.” he gently removed the elf’s hands from his coat, lowering his voice. “A Knight Commander asking Val Royeaux for the Right has only been denied once. And they had acted upon it in anticipation regardless. Better to fight than to be slaughtered in your beds. Better still to get the most vulnerable out first. Go now, Orsino.” The elderly elf took a few steps back, eyes wide as they stared between Anders and the Templars.

“The Grand Cleric has been murdered by magic, the Chantry destroyed.” Meredith remarked, her eyes alight with vindicated fervor. “As Knight Commander of Kirkwall, I invoke the Right of Annulment, and order the execution of every mage in the city. Immediately.”

“No! I did this, I acted alone.  Cast your judgement on me, Knight Commander.” Anders snapped, stepping in front of her, only to watch her step around him like he was nothing. “Let the blade pass through my flesh,” he whispered, reaching up without thinking to touch the wide scar over his heart. “Let my blood touch the ground, let my cries touch their hearts, let mine be the last sacrifice.” 

“Please, Champion, you can’t let them do this!” Orsino pleaded, cautiously backing his way to the edge of the courtyard. Whether Meredith had been planning this as the Underground claimed or not, it was done now, Chantry permission or not. He needed to get back to the Gallows and warn his people.

“Stand with me, Champion. We cannot let this outrage stand!” the Knight Commander insisted,drawing her sword, the red lyrium along its length glowing sullenly through the still falling ash. “Stand with them, and you will share their fate.”

Sebastian pushed himself to his feet, drawing his dragonwing bow from his back. “Why are you arguing the Right of Annulment when the monster who did this is right here!” he demanded, pointing at where Anders still stood. He nocked an arrow to his string, staring into the mage’s blue ringed eyes. “I swear to you, I will kill him.”

“It can’t be stopped now, if it ever could.” Anders remarked gently, ignoring the arrow leveled at his chest. “Hawke, you have to choose now, one way or the other. Protect your own interests and risk the Knight Commander turning on you when she has what she wants, or help save the other mages.”

“Hawke, don’t tell me you condone this? The brutal death of an innocent woman of faith, one who helped you, trusted you!” The Prince of Starkhaven drew the arrow back farther, eyes not leaving Anders.

“I didn’t say that!” Gerry snapped, glancing around at the rest of his friends. “I’m sorry about this,Fen, but I’m pretty sure Meredith will have me sharing their fate whichever way I choose. She’s crazy like that. Orsino, we’re with you.” 

Fenris muttered, but stepped to his mage’s side, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Idiot mage,” he remarked fondly. “Defending them at your side is better than anywhere away from you. Please don’t make a habit of this.”

“I know where I stand, Hawke. My place… is with you on this,” Aveline hesitantly remarked. “I owe you my life at least once over. My guardsmen and I are with you.”

“I’m not sure this is a battle even you could win, Snowflake, but Bianca and I are in.” Varric grinned darkly, hefting his crossbow. 

“Thank you Fen-love, Aveline, Varric. I knew I could count on you.” Hawke whirled his staff, coating the nearest Templars in thick ice, as the Enchanter fled with the present mages back to the waiting boats.

Half of them shattered a moment later, a trio of rogues behind them. “Isabela, what are we getting ourselves into?” the pirate muttered to herself, glancing at the pair of elves flanking her.  “Hawke, I’m certain to regret this, but I’m in. Zev, how do you and your new friend feel about a bit of a scramble with bad odds?”

The blond stretched, daggers spinning around his hands. “I might help for a bit, if the circumstances were right and the other business that brought me to the city doesn’t interfere,” he remarked, a small grin twisting the edges of the black tattoos that ran down from his forehead. “Pretty, so deadly Smoke, will you come and play with us?” he asked the darker skinned elf, who perched pensively on a pile of icy rubble.   
“Perhaps.” the last elf’s dark braids were collecting a layer of grey dust, and they shook them back from their face, the metallic gold flames etched down from their brow glinting slightly. They cocked their head, grey eyes fixed on Anders. “ _ From what I gathered of the plans in passing, you were supposed to be on your way out of the city when things fell out, not playing martyr _ ,” they hissed at the healer in fluid elven.

“ _ I needed to make sure she has enough time, keep the Templars busy longer. I didn’t expect them to expedite their plans instead _ ,” Anders responded in the same language, blue flickering slowly over his skin. “If I don’t make it out of this, look after her and the girls, tell her I’m sorry it went this way. That I love her _.” _

“You expect me to go find the Lady, relay that message, and tell her I let you die? Are you trying to get me murdered? Do I look like a  _ dahn’direlan _ to you?” Rasanis asked incredulously, and Anders snorted softly, still watching a furious Prince Vael with his hands trembling on the bowstring. The blond assassin next to the Sentinel chuckled under his breath, and Rasanis sighed. “Don’t answer that. Human in the shiny enamel armor, I would deeply appreciate it if you lowered the bow and didn’t make my… sister’s boyfriend a martyr right now.”

Sebastian bared his teeth in a snarl, drawing back into full draw. “Hawke. He dies or I’m done with the lot of you. I’ll go back to Starkhaven, take back my castle, and return with an army. We will burn this filthy, Maker Forsaken city to the ground and salt the remains. Let me kill him or put the abomination out of his misery yourself.”

“Anders… Do you have anything to say for yourself? Look at what you’ve done!” Hawke gesticulated wildly, pointing out the amount of Hightown covered in fine rubble, the broken windows and scattered fires from the shockwave.

“It had to be done. The Circle was never a solution, and everything the Templars did, everything the Chantry did was only making it worse. Of all the ways for this to end, this...” Anders sighed, looking back at the rubble filled hole that had been a towering cathedral. “Gerr..Hawke. Meredith sent to Val Royeaux for the Right weeks ago. Half the Templars knew about it, they were bragging to the mages they abused that they were going to die. The Undergr…” He shrugged, shaking his head. “You know who’s left of the Underground. She snuck into the Knight Commander’s office the same way she used to follow me to the Hanged Man, after the rumors came to us. She found copies of the letters Meredith sent out. At least this way, they have a fighting chance.”  Gerry glared at him, hands white knuckled around his staff, and Anders shrugged again. “I have nothing else to say I haven’t told all of you until my lungs ached,” he snorted, running his fingers endlessly over the braid in his hand, a ghost of a prayer running through his mind. “Except that Hawke’s name was included in the list of Circle mages. Believe what you want,” he added, as Gerry drew himself up.

“I don’t know what to believe anymore. But I don’t think this city needs to pay for your mistakes, Anders. Seb, do what you want. He isn’t my problem anymore.” Gerry turned on his heel, following the path Orsino had taken towards the small docks and the Gallows boats. He heard the twang of a released arrow, and gritted his teeth before continuing.


	31. Warden Business

“Rivaini, maybe you should go check on Daisy. I don’t like the idea of her getting caught up in this mess.” Varric counted his quiver of crossbow bolts, flicking worried glances between his friends as they waited for a boat.

“Our kitten has her own guard dog now, and they were both going to be out of the city for the day. Coincidentally with a certain tiny mage our resident healers adopted in tow.” Isabela remarked, keeping her voice low. The dwarf lowered Bianca, wincing, and the pirate continued. “The Alienage shut their gates this morning, the Dalish were finally brought enough deer things to move on, and no one is stirring out of their nooks and nests in Darktown today. Even the Blooming Rose seemed to be on lockdown.”

“Blondie planned this. Planned it for long enough to warn people to stay out of the way. Why didn’t he come to us with this?” Varric asked, slamming a half gloved fist into a nearby post. “You think he warned Snapdragon out of the city as well?”

“Her? I think we’re more likely to see her already at the Gallows than anywhere safe,” Isabela sighed, loosening one of the daggers in her boot top. “As evasive as Anders was being about it, she’s in this up to her pretty little neck.”  And a certain handsome Antivan and his charmingly almost Dalish new playmate were far better informed about the day’s events than they were letting on, she was certain of it. “Varric, that kid they took in… they were training her and her sister, the one that the Templars grabbed.”

“I… Damn it, Blondie. If he’s been planning this for that long… Why didn’t they come to us?” He stepped further onto the docks, trying not to let his voice carry over to where Aveline and Fenris were trying to liberate a boat large enough for all of them.  When he looked back, Isabela was watching him with more contemplation than he was used to from her. “What?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but no one in our little crew has been listening to anything he says for years. Our resident apostates all gave up on us helping them with anything months ago. Merrill stopped asking for help with her mirror thing, Fox only turned up if it was me or Merrill asking her, and Anders stopped talking about the ‘cause’.”  The pirate stared out at the docks for a moment, eyes fixed on a splendid three masted brig, drydocked with half the name scraped off. “Fenris laid into me for an hour about that ship, about letting Castillion live. Aveline still hasn’t let off telling me how selfish I was to let a slaver go. The mages came out to help me rescue Zevran, without a single comment until I asked where my lecture was. Fox just said ‘No point being mad at a snake for biting.’”

“Ouch. That… That is very much a snippy Snapdragon remark.” Varric noted, swinging Bianca back up onto his shoulder as the warriors untied the large rowboat. “I’ll admit we might not have been the most reliable friends for that lot lately, but to pull something like this…” He fell silent as they climbed into the boat, shaking his head. 

“After pulling this, Anders deserves whatever Sebastian does to him,” Hawke announced, not looking at any of the others, sounding slightly unconvinced himself. “Better him than the rest of Kirkwall, whatever of it survives the night.”

 

The Gallows courtyard was already in flames when their boat touched the rocky shore. A scattering of mages were locked in heated battle with the Templars that had stayed behind, the ones that weren't already rendered into piles of charred metal. As soon as the courtyard was cleared, the robed combatants fled deeper into the fortress. In a large, open room, sitting on a pile of scorched corpses, sat a small elf, dressed in light robes slit up the sides and belted tightly.  “Orsino! Just the elf I wanted to talk to,” she called, completely unconcerned about the fires flaring behind her or the sparks flickering at the end of her long silver hair. “I suppose Meredith is already on her way back with her little army of lyrium addicts?”

“I suspect they’ll be landing any moment, despite a number of mages staying behind to delay them. Despite your Underground’s little display.” He stared up at her, fury mingled with bafflement. “Why? Why would you do this? I had this under control. The circle could have survived!”

“Surviving isn’t living, First Enchanter. I’d see to what you need to and find a way off this desolate rock. Lingering is likely to be bad for your health,” she tossed off, jumping lightly off her makeshift perch. “I do wish you and yours the best of luck, but I have things to do and people to meet, and have tarried here far too long already. The same wishes to your people, Champion Hawke.” Fox started to stroll off down a hallway towards the Templar side of the building, picking her bare feet carefully through the splatters of blood.

Aveline caught her by the wrist as she passed, tugging her closer into the group. “You knew what Anders was going to do. You helped plan this!”

The silver haired elf ran her tongue over her teeth, staring pointedly at the fingers digging into her skin. “Let’s go with yes, and add the fact I would have been out of here an hour ago if Orsino had been here to hear the speech and warnings I gave his Senior Enchanters. What do you care, Guard Captain? We were already outlaws, by your own words.  Criminals just for existing.” She flexed her fingers, and Aveline yanked her hand back, hissing at the sudden burn. Fox took a step back, frowning at the marks the warrior had left on her skin, sparing a single glance for Fenris’s approach behind her. “I owe you nothing anymore, puppy. Get your pet off the island by dark, as well as anyone you call friend. I have a few things to finish up before I leave.”

“He isn’t going to be there, not this time.” Fenris remarked, and she spun to face him, a quizzical tilt to her ears. “Prince Vael took extreme issue with Elthina’s death, and Hawke gave him Anders to spare Kirkwall from Starkhaven’s wrath.” The little mage paled, then flushed, her eyes seeming to change in the flickering firelight, pupils narrowing. She looked from him, to an indifferent Hawke, to a pirate who refused to meet her gaze, tipping her face to the sky with her eyes shut. 

Then she screamed, slapping her palm against Fenris’s chest in a blow that knocked him back into Hawke hard enough to take them both down.  She fled, shifting mid leap to something that might be called a fox, if foxes were the size of Mabari, many tailed and made of shimmering blue fire. Those long tails flicked ahead of her as she ran, tracing a circle of fire she jumped into and vanished.  

Flame burst from a window in the tower ahead Hawke was pretty sure was the Knight Commander’s office, quickly spreading to that entire side of the building. Another burst came from the opposite side. 

Hawke was still watching it burn when Meredith entered behind him. 

 

Sebastian felt the release of the long held arrow, watched it fly true with a deep sense of satisfaction. It might not be enough, but it would be a start to have justice for poor lost Elthina… His arrow caught fire halfway to its target, even as a shadowy tendril of smoke pulled it out of the air.  “Again, making her boyfriend a martyr out of hand is a very bad idea. Very. I cannot stress enough how bad of an idea that is. There are far too many fragile things around to risk her temper. You, me, the city of Kirkwall.” Rasanis explained, as the tendril lazily twirled the arrow around his fingers. 

“I am not afraid of that little Tevinter bitch, mage or not. I’ve fought enough maleficar and abominations at Hawke’s side, what’s one more?” Sebastian snapped, pulling another golden fletched arrow from his quiver. “Andraste give me streng.. Maker’s mercy,” he yelped, as the entire quiver flashed into fire.

“I don’t know how afraid you should be of this Tevinter, haven’t met her,  but stepping away from my healer is going to be good for your continued health.”  Sebastian blinked at the mage strolling into the courtyard. For a brief moment, he thought it was Hawke, a lean Hawke in blue and silver Warden armor, with the scruffy black hair tamed back into a long horsetail. “This is Warden business,  which means I can legally set you on fire if you get in our way.”

“Debatably,” the dark haired, lean man in Warden leathers interjected, leaning on his bow. “I doubt Carver or I could get away with that. Luckily, you’re you.  Anders, what were you thinking?”

“Anders is capable of thinking?” Hawke’s younger brother grumbled, watching from his position on the mage’s other side.

“Warden Commander Mikel Amell,” the mage announced himself still eyeing the remaining people in the courtyard. “I’m collecting Warden Anders.”

“Have you seen what he’s done?” Sebastian gestured at the ruins, at the bodies of the Templars that had tried to stop the Champion. “You would take him back into the Wardens after this, take an abomination back into your ranks?”

“Consider it re conscription off the block if it makes you feel better. He’s a Warden for life, whether he likes it or not. Both of them are.” the tall mage shrugged, as Anders reluctantly slunk to the spot his Commander pointed at before him. “Front and center, Warden Anders.” 

“He murdered the Grand Cleric! Any other day, he might have murdered me!” Sebastian insisted, a touch of shrillness entering his voice.

“It’s good to see you again, boss, even under these circumstances,” the blond mage sighed, sparing a brief thought to running. If he had stuck to the original plan, he could be halfway to the rendezvous point by now, keeping Merrill and Meeka out of trouble until Fox arrived with the other mages. “Vael, it’s Tuesday. You are never in the Chantry on Tuesday, because you always go off with Hawke, be it bandit hunting or cards. No one outside the Templars or the sisterhood is ever in the Chantry on a Tuesday.” He and Fox had put some thought into the timing of their plan, after all.

“Anders, I really had hope Justice would keep you out of trouble, not help you get into more.” Mikel sighed, frowning solemnly at the clearly recalcitrant mage. “We’ll talk about this when we get back to camp. Rest assured, he will be dealt with accordingly.”

“I demand you surrender the abomination to our justice, or the Grey Wardens will never be allowed in Starkhaven again, and our tithes will cease.” The pale skinned archer drew himself up to his full, regal height, staring down the Wardens imperiously. 

“Yeah, that worked out really well for Ferelden. Good luck with that,” the tall Warden shrugged, moving to shove Anders towards the other Warden. “Zev, are you coming with us or going to go help Isabela?”

“My dear Warden, I’m surprised you aren’t rushing after her yourself. Templars to kill, beleaguered mages to save… It seems very much your thing.” the former Crow remarked, as the taller elf slid down from the pile of frozen rubble and armor.

“As much as I’d love to join in, I think I should get him back to camp and dealt with him first. I promised Morri I wouldn’t do anything too stupid on this trip, so I suppose I’ll just have to console myself with whatever Templars get in my way as we leave.” Amell shrugged, glancing over the other Wardens. “Carver, if you really want to go help your brother, go ahead. Just meet us back on the trail as soon as you can.” The younger man nodded, hefting his shield as he headed down to the docks. As soon as he was out of earshot, the Hero of Ferelden grinned at the blond assassin. “Keep him and my other cousin out of trouble, will you? I’ll owe you a favor, usual rules apply.”

“Oh, you and your so picky rules, my dear Warden. Two favors, if you please, and I’ll go babysit the less entertaining portion of your family,” Zevran negotiated, grinning just as widely when Mikel nodded in agreement. He bowed mockingly at the still fuming noble as he turned to follow the heavily armored Warden. 

 The dark braided, tall elf at his side stayed him a moment longer, pulling him close for a lingering kiss. “I really should go make sure that Doshiel’s side of the plans hasn’t ended up muddled, make sure they don’t need me in place…” They murmured, clearly hesitant. Zevran traced along the golden lines that gleamed against Smoke’s darker skin, smiling invitingly up into the pale grey eyes that matched their name. “Or I could make sure that pirate doesn’t go leading you into trouble you can’t get out of, save myself the worry you’ll end up set on fire.” With a snap of their long fingers, Rasanis and Zevran both faded from view. 

The Warden Commander shook his head, still smiling. “Two of them, I have to deal with two of them now. Worse things than friends with those sort of skills, I suppose.” He dug his fingers into the collar of Anders coat, propelling him out of the ruined courtyard. The twang of a bowstring, oddly doubled, caught his attention, and he tossed up a shield barrier in time to see an arrow skitter over the flagstones at his feet. At the foot of the stairs, Sebastian muttered a low curse, pulling Nathaniel’s arrow from his shoulder. “Well, you’re a persistent little bastard, I’ll give you that. But I’ve been looking for Anders here for years now. He’s a Warden problem, and we’ll look after our own. I’m taking responsibility for him, as Warden business.” Amell raised a hand, and the bow at Vael’s feet shuddered into powdery ash. “Interfere with me again today, and that will be your head.” 

Mikel resumed half dragging the warden healer out of Hightown, Nate at his heels, ignoring the frustrated, mournful shriek from behind them. 

 

Several corners and rubble strewn streets later, Amell pulled Anders back upright and let go, checking the area carefully before crossing his arms and staring his favorite recruit down. “Well?”

“Fox is getting the mages out, those that don’t decide to stay and fight, to hold the Templars off. Most of the noncombatants should be nearly out of the city by now.” Anders managed a small smile, holding out his crossed wrists to the other Wardens in a practiced gesture. “We didn’t want the apprentices getting caught up in any of this mess. Those of them with families to go back to should find them waiting at one of the safehouses. The rest… it can be dealt with once they’re safe and she gets the phylacteries and records destroyed.”

“You did plan this properly,” Mikel remarked, with an approving smile, paying no attention to the wrists held out to him. “Points for the idea, a hundred more for style, minus several thousand for getting caught in the middle of it.” He took the staff Nate grabbed out of an unobtrusive box in an alley, tossing it to the other mage. “I expect we’ll encounter some trouble on the way out.” The blond blinked at him in surprise, and the dark haired warden rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to dig out manacles for the trip back to camp, Anders. I will be very annoyed if you make me chase you, though.”

“You were very pointed about the idea of dragging me back to punish me yourself,” Anders noted, falling into place behind his Commander regardless as they headed out of the city.

“Sure. You’ll be dealt with accordingly.”  The Commander paused, reaching back to smack Anders’s thin wrist dramatically. “Bad Anders. Bad. No dessert for you. One month for not coming back with Nate when he found you the first time and another for pulling this kind of stunt and still leaving Templars alive.” 

“Can I have leniency on the second month, given that the Gallows will suffer the same fate as the Chantry by morning?” Anders asked, a few streets later. Both the other Wardens turned to look at him, one long suffering and the other grinning. “Fox took a couple smaller versions of the mixture I used. She’ll gut the records and phylactery rooms with fire, then plant one under the Templar barracks and the other to take out anyone following them into the tunnels we’re using. Should go off in a couple hours.”

“Anders, I have this sudden urge to kiss you,” Mikel remarked with a fond, beatific smile, going so far as to cradle the other mage’s face in his hands. “If I didn’t think my Morri would castrate us both for it, I would sleep with you. That is the sweetest thing I have ever heard out of your mouth.”

“Mine isn’t likely to take kindly to sharing me any more than yours, Boss.” Anders pointed out, even as he idly tossed a lightning bolt at a pair of Templars charging at the sight of two armed mages. “Probably. It depends on the mood she’s in when… Speaking of, can we detour long enough to pick up my family from the rendezvous point we planned? Please?”

“Why not. The more I hear about her, the more I’d like to meet this girl of yours.” Mikel shrugged, shoving a battle magic enhanced sword through the throat of the Templar who managed to dodge the lightning.


	32. Meredith's fall

In the midst of fire and animated statues, Gerry stumbled back, cursing. What ice he could still summon was melting as fast as he could throw it, and his supply of mana potions had run out a smite and a half ago. When he had decided to back the mages in this, he had expected to find them still here fighting, more than just Orsino and the handful with him. Facing the Knight Commander basically on his own was not what he had signed up for! 

Aveline had managed to take out the first of the bronze statues Meredith was bringing to life with her sword, barely. He could still see her out of the corner of his eye, the  massive chunk of metal sticking out of her armor rising and falling with each labored breath. Varric was dodging another, trying to get a better shot at the Knight Commander herself, already sick of watching his crossbow bolts bounce off the ancient metal. Meredith’s sword was glowing the same eerie red as the coals of the dying fire, contrasting to the vivid blue white Fenris was wreathed in as he phased in and out around her. 

A hissing sound from behind him, and a second source of blue light stepped next to him. “You lot seem to be having a bit of trouble with this,”  Foxfire noted in a voice as sweet and brittle as frozen marzipan. “Why, it’s almost like you should have brought a healer along. The Guard Captain doesn’t look well at all. Or poor Isabela.”  She smiled at him, eyes intent and cold as a prowling cat’s, tipping her head to let her flaming hair indicate the pirate crumpled against the wall. 

Hawke swallowed hard, glancing back at the fight, at the blood dripping from the cuts along his lover’s arms, how hard he was breathing as his movements slowed. At his hand and the sad excuse for frost he could barely coat his fingers with. “Please. Please help us, Fen isn’t going to last much longer out there. He’s all I have left, please, I beg you!”

“Why?  You have nothing of value to me to bargain with, human. Let’s see, what did you say that day? I was nothing to you? What excuses would you have made to my Anders if Danarius had taken your offer?” She watched him flinch at the memory, still holding that smile that didn’t reach her eyes, sparing the merest glance up as the Knight Commander’s blade slid off Fenris’s attempted parry, the tip catching his cheek as he fell back. “Fenris is nothing to me, and you are even less. Why would I bother to help you, when I could just watch? Watch you watching the only person you love die to protect you, knowing you’re helpless to stop it.” She leaned back, ropes of flame spinning themselves into a chair under her. 

“Okay, I… I deserve that, but he doesn’t, so please!” He dropped to his knees at her feet, tears in his eyes as she merely moved her feet out of his reach. “Sebastian said he’d destroy Kirkwall because of Elthina, but I should have defended Anders, apparently. I should have listened to both of you all along, helped the ‘mage cause’. I swear I will devote the rest of my life to helping free other mages, just please, save him!”

“You’re lying, and I really don’t care anyway. It’s a little late for apologies and promises, when half of everything I care about are on their way out of the city and the other half is apparently dead to a Starkhaven arrow.”  She glanced up at the fight again, frowning slightly as she studied the sword Meredith was wielding. “That… that seems wrong. It sounds wrong, like the song is broken…” she murmured, more to herself than to the other mage, the lyrium scars flickering oddly.

“Please? Uh… She’s a Templar, so Anders would have wanted her dead… Justice would want her dead, please…” Gerry swallowed hard again at the look that passed over her face as he spoke the name. That had probably not been the best tactic to use, but he doubted there was a good one at all. Not at this point. Her hair flared brighter, spreading out almost like wings as she stepped past him with a disgusted look. Then they were wings, vast expanses of membrane and tendon, with a thick maned crest between them along the ridge of the scaled back, running down the long length of a twitching, tufted tail. “Why are all the crazy witches dragons?” he asked, of no one in particular, and felt the tip of the tail thud hard into his chest. It was heavier than it looked, despite the almost downy feathering of long fur that tipped it, and easily smacked him back into the wall. 

She was bigger than Flemeth had been, he thought. Or it could be that this dragon was stalking through a contained courtyard and not flying his family to safe harbor. The silver scales glittered, reflecting the bits of fire still glowing through the windows, marked by gleaming lightning crawls of lyrium.   She sniffed curiously at the glowing red sword waved in her face, before she reached out, pinning Meredith easily under the arch of a massive paw. A crossbow bolt pinged against her haunches, leaving a thin scratch across a patterned scale, and she kicked back lightly without a glance, sending Varric rolling back over the flagstones. 

Fenris hauled himself back to his feet for what felt like the hundredth time, finding himself face to face with an aquamarine eyed dragon more than large enough to swallow him whole. She snorted imperiously in his direction, sulphurous breath hot enough to make his skin tighten like a day under the Seheron sun. Slowly, he let his new sword fall from his shaking fingers, forcing his legs to take him back one step, then another, trying not to break eye contact as he retreated back to where Gerry was sprawled against a wall.

The moment his weapon clanged against the stone, the dragon turned her attention back to the Knight Commander, who was attempting to stab up between the thick scales of her toes. With a careless cuff, she sent the Templar rolling in a clatter of armor, the sword skittering away from her. When Meredith scrambled for her sword and ran back at her, two more statues climbing down off the wall, Sylaise grinned, all her fangs gleaming in the flickering light. 

Another measured pat from a massive paw sent the Knight Commander skidding back, leaving time for her to consider the mournful statues lumbering her way and draw enough breath for a huff of fire. One large enough to leave them both as lumpy pools of molten metal. A prickle of pain, and she looked back to find Meredith attempting to drive the red lyrium tip of her sword into one of the wider veins of blue lyrium running along her leg. A harder slap, and the tinny sound of crumpling metal was audible as the Templar flew halfway across the courtyard. A draconic huff and a spark of fire slowly returned the edges of the affected vein back to its perfect blue. 

Satisfied she had burned all of it back out, she turned back to her prey, leaping forward in a double pawed pounce before batting her away again. Meredith struggled back to her feet, trying to pick up her precious sword, and the dragon licked its lips, giving the woman a moment to decide whether she was going to flee or attack. Summoning the last of the statues, the Knight Commander chose to attack, and found herself knocked flat, pinned under the patient scrutiny of the dragon taking up most of the vast courtyard.

On the other side of the yard, Varric heaved himself to his feet, limping over to help Fenris dig through Hawke’s pack for the healing potions he always kept. “No one is ever going to believe this shit,” the dwarf muttered, with a sidelong glance at the dragon. “I doubted the stupid ‘Flemeth flew us out of the blight’ story. I’m seeing this and I still don’t believe it. I definitely can’t put this shit in a book.”

“Dunno, just my fucking luck,” Hawke muttered, closing his eyes against the garbled shriek that followed a short roar and the crackle of fire that followed. “I meet two witches scary enough to turn into dragons, and both of them as crazy as fuck.”

“Idiot mage…” Fenris started, checking his human over as the dwarf propped Isabela up enough to try getting some potion down her throat. He froze, glancing back at the dragon licking bits of molten blue lyrium off her claws, still crouched over a warped, red hot patch of stone. “Hawke, you aren’t say that that's… No.” He had heard the tale of the escape from the blight before, and had given it as little credence as Varric. Mages couldn’t turn into dragons, the sheer amount of power even trying would take… Danarius had given him little instruction in religion, but the stories and myths had still trickled their way into his head. The possibilities that the dragon gods of ancient tevinter that favored the mages might have been themselves… Foolishness, nonsense.

“If I’d known what she could do, I probably would have been nicer to her. Flemeth was derisive about my chances of learning to become a dragon, but Anders’s Fox used to be a lot sweeter…” Hawke muttered, trying to lever back to his feet with Fenris’s help.

“If you have to ask how to be a dragon, you aren’t ready.” Fox remarked from almost directly behind Fenris, her hair taming down to flickering sparks, flowing to her ankles. She brushed a hand over Isabela’s cheek, smiling faintly as the pirate’s breathing steadied. With a much more ambivalent expression, she regarded the dying Guard Captain, sighing heavily before yanking out the spike of bronze and laying her hand over the sucking hole in her chest. “You should really count yourself lucky I’ve regained more of my power over the last couple years,” she remarked, as Aveline drew a heaving breath, coughing up bits of blood as the wound sealed itself shut. “Go home to your husband, Aveline, and be grateful that Donnic is a good man.”  Without another look back, she strolled forward, a metal blade staff leaping to her hand in a flare of green light.

“Snapdragon… I’m sorry about Blondie, about Anders. I… I should have stopped the Choir boy, no matter what Snowflake here said.” Varric said to her back, and she stopped, visibly tensing at her lover’s name. She rolled her neck, the popping sounds clearly audible in the quiet settling over the courtyard.

“You have such a way with nicknames, Tethras. Snowflake for an ice mage more fluff than substance, Rivaini for a pirate girl who hasn’t seen her home since she was a child. Daisy… Daisies for innocence, for sweetness. And Snapdragon… Snapdragons for arrogance, presumption, deviousness…” She glanced back at him, the faint smile she had turned on Isabela back as the dwarf flushed. “It’s very fitting. Look after yourself, dwarf. Don’t tarry here too long, if you want to write anymore books.” She shifted back into the flaming fox,vanishing out of sight.

 

“One obnoxious little ice mage, still alive, as requested. Isabela will have a headache from the impact with the wall to put the worst hangover she’s had to shame when she wakes, but she’ll be fine. As will the Guard Captain. The puppy has an impressive assortment of bruises and cuts, and the dwarf cracked a couple ribs when I kicked him away from the fight. Nothing life threatening,” Fox remarked, not bothering to look up at the waiting assassins or the young Warden as she strolled past them. “Rasanis,” she sighed a few steps later, finally looking up at the oldest of her Sentinels.

“I know, if your blond pet isn’t alive and intact when you find him, you will fulfill the threat you issue at least once a year and kill me gruesomely.” They restrained themselves from rolling their eyes at the last moment.

“Not actually what I…  _ Really, if I was ever going to go through with that, it would have been after the time I caught you in my bed with the triplets I spent a decade poaching from Andruil. Or the time you broke into Dirthaman’s Temple to leave obscene pictures all over his inner sanctum _ .” She laughed at the blatantly unrepentant grin they wore. “ _ Smoke to my fire, you set plans so far back with that stunt. It took all the sway I had with my brother just to get him to stop asking for your head. Convincing him to help me back offering you for the ascension I’d spent so long grooming you for was impossible at that point. _ ”

“What?  _ You were..I was..I was your apprentice? Why didn’t you tell me you were training me for that _ ?” They asked, staring at her in disbelief.  

“ _ Because by the time you were ready, you were only left alive because you were mine. It’s death to assume the form of the divine without permission, and convincing the others to agree to that permission… it wasn’t happening _ .” She flicked a hand dismissively. “Ras, I don’t… You aren’t to blame for anything that went wrong today, even if it has gone worse than you think. It would have been nice if you had killed the crazy bitch when I asked, or actually stayed out of the city like I told you, but you are what you are.” She read the look on their face, and sighed. “I’m going to send the elven mages without anywhere better to go home with you. Get them properly trained, settle them in, feel free to kill Nydmisa and anyone else that crosses the line.  _ We’ll see if they can learn how to properly be elves, shorter lives notwithstanding _ .”

“Fine. I’m probably going to ask for a favor for all this in a few years, you realize.” They leaned back against the blond Crow, huffing dramatically.

“Noted and agreed to, Rasanis. I’d tell you to look after yourself in my absence, but we both know you’re going to find an excuse to hover just out of my sight the moment  I’m not paying attention.” She took another step towards the half collapsed tunnel, and hesitated. “Younger, less annoying Hawke brother,” she started, making Carver snort in wary amusement. “Next time your family is short of money, do not spread void tainted lyrium around as a solution. I realize for some reason you thought it was harmless. It isn’t. If I track another spread back to you, we will not have this friendly of a talk. There are limits to what even dragon fire can purify.”


	33. I did promise dead templars, didn't I?

“So how’s life been living with your witch of the wilds, oh noble Commander?” Anders asked a bit later, heading up the mountain trails that surrounded Kirkwall.

“Everything I ever dreamed, Anders. It was a bit of an adjustment, becoming a father, but it’s worth it. A free life with Kieran and Morri is worth more than anything I might have gained by staying with the Wardens.” Mikel explained, a soft, fond smile on his face. “No offense to anything the two of you dealt with when I was gone. I am sorry about Sigrun… And your cat.”

Anders shrugged, glancing back at the city with an unreadable expression on his face. “You had to protect the woman you loved, your family. I can understand that, Amell. Well, I can understand that now, anyways. I was a little less reasonable right after you left, what with the Templars joining, the attempt to kill me, all that. When I came here… They made Karl tranquil, because he was writing to me. To use him as a trap to catch an apostate.” Without conscious thought, his fingers sought out the braid wrapped around his hand again, the ridged scar through his palm under it. Mikel looked back at him, wincing as a vague image of the older mage came to him. Even if their paths hadn’t crossed as often as his and Anders in the Tower, he heard enough to know they had been at least as close as he and Jowan once had. “I devoted myself to trying to fix what was wrong with this place, as best I could. And it brought me what I didn’t know I needed and far more than I deserve.”

“The Fox you keep mentioning? Nate said she was Tevinter? I still can’t imagine how you managed to find a magister in a Free Marches sewer.” Amell chuckled, even while making note of how much more like Justice the blond mage sounded. If that level of blurred line between spirit and mage was normal for those possessed by friendly spirits it would explain an awful lot of what had come out of Wynne’s mouth. He didn’t remember the old spirit healer being nearly as naggy about, well, everything, before Faith had saved her. Admittedly, his irritation with her had stemmed more from not wanting to hear it and less from her being horribly wrong. Except about the Circle being needed. The more he saw of the world, the less he believed that. And everything she had said about Morrigan.

“Laetan, not Magister. There is apparently a vast difference between the two.” Anders corrected, sighing at the look both the other Wardens gave him. “It’s basically like the difference between an Arl and a freeholder, going by what’s been repeatedly explained to me. Referring to a random Tevinter mage as a Magister goes over about as well as calling a Ferelden merchant a doglord.” He could see the others nod out of the corner of his eye, and smiled. The complications of Fox’s status in Tevinter was nothing to the idea of explaining who she had been before her return. “She’s… one of a kind. Talented, pretty, sweet, brilliant at healing, knows a lot of really esoteric arcane theory, and can set Templars on fire with ease...” Nate snorted softly from the other side of their commander, and Anders let the end of his staff thump into the archer’s shoulder, rolling his eyes. “As to how I found her in the tunnels...Templars.”

“Ah.” Amell rubbed the back of his neck, knowing better than to push further. “Nate and Zev mentioned you were here, with the latter seeming convinced you were likely to get yourself in trouble. I thought I should at least check on you. I was going to bring Morri along and introduce you, but she didn’t like my idea of having Mouse babysit.”

“How unFerelden of her,” the blond started to chuckle, before frowning as a thought occurred to him. “You did mean Mouse the giant mabari as a babysitter and not Mouse from our Harrowings, right, Boss?”  The dark haired battle mage was making a point of not looking back at the older Warden, and Anders pinched the bridge of his nose as a familiar headache settled. “Amell, please tell me you weren’t leaving a pride demon in charge of your child.”

“Of course not. Morri wouldn’t go for it, so you’ll have to wait until we get home to meet her. And I only suggest Fade Mouse after she rejected the dog, anyways. He’s very smart and reliable, but apparently we’d need to leave Kieran with people who have opposable thumbs.” The Warden flicked a hand dismissively, and Nate and Anders shared a look as they debated whether the Commander was joking or not. On one hand, the man had named his mabari after that pride demon to begin with, on the other, what sane parent… Probably better not to know.

 

Carver caught up with them halfway up the foothills, breathing hard. “Isabela talked Gerry and Fenris into leaving with her before the Templars got enough gumption to go after them. The Knight Captain let him go when he saw how much of a mess everything was, said he was going to try to get Hightown settled. Varric said he had to go check on the tavern, Donnic was getting Aveline home, and no one has any idea where Vael went.”

“Vael’s the Starkhaven lad with the bow right? He’ll just have to be a problem for another day. Did our sneaky elven friends tell you where they were going before they vanished on you?” Amell asked, fingers drumming with a touch of nerves along his staff.

“They stuck around until my brother was on the ship, I think they were helping to convince the Templars left that it was better to just get him out of the city as fast as possible, after what happened to the Knight Commander.” Carver accepted the waterskin Nate passed him, taking a few swallows and before falling in behind the others.

“Out of curiosity, what did happen to her?” Anders was staring back over his shoulder at the city again, head tilted expectantly as he surveyed the skyline already colored by a setting sun.

The dark haired warrior shrugged noncommittally, worry in his tone as he tried to follow the healer’s line of sight. “The Templars, none of whom were close enough to see anything, seemed convinced my brother and his friends took her down. I think that’s gonna stay the official story. But they’re somewhere between admitting he basically put down a mad dog and too scared to try to bring him in.”  

 The redhead in dark leather armor came around the corner of a rock formation, eyebrow raised at the younger man’s phrasing. “And what would your unofficial story be, young Warden?”

Amell started to step towards the bard, a broad, conciliatory smile on his face, only to find his cousin already in front of him. “Hey, you were in Lothering, at the Chantry. Nate, this is the Lay sister I mentioned, the Orlesian with the sweet tits I spent the entire summer trying to...”   Mikel clamped a belated hand over his younger cousin’s mouth, as the redhead’s eyebrows raised even further.

“Leliana! How wonderful to see you again. This is one of my cousins from Lothering, who I apparently need to muzzle,” Amell greeted her, keeping his hand in place. “You must have just missed Zevran.  Nate, Carver, Anders, this is Leliana, who was an irreplaceable part of fighting the blight. I once saw her nearly castrate a bandit with an arrow. Amazing woman.” He smiled tightly, squeezing his fingers warningly before letting Carver loose again.

“Uh, sorry about… I apologize for my vulgar speech, Lady Leliana. It won’t happen again,” the younger Hawke carefully said, choosing to ignore the quiet snort from one of the other wardens behind him. 

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Leliana remarked with a touch of amusement, before glancing over at the black coated mage in the back of the group and back at the Warden Commander pointedly. Mikel shrugged blandly, nonchalantly stepping further between the bard and Anders. “Anything anyone here could tell me that isn’t in the official story would be helpful, though.”

“I tried to do this peacefully, to bring the injustice to the attention of those already tasked with preventing it. I’ve spent six years trying, while my people were stripped of everything, while they were beaten, raped, murdered on the whims of their jailors. While everyone who should have been protecting them turned the other way.” Anders said quietly from behind his Commander, not taking his eyes off the city behind them as his hands clenched. “In the end, bandaging the wounds of those crushed beneath the injustice was not enough. We had to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” 

“We?” Leliana started to ask, before the ground underneath them trembled slightly and she followed the healer’s line of sight. In a two part show of red light only slightly more subdued than the destruction of the Chantry, what was left of the Gallows shuddered apart, collapsing into the sea. When she looked back up at him, she flinched from the glowing blue eyes watching her, the light sparking just under his skin. “So the rumours were true. He is an…”

“Dear Leliana, I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Wynne recently, have you? Last I heard she was traveling to see something at a different circle.” Mikel asked, staring her down until she sighed and leaned back against a rock.

“Point taken, Amell. So the Grand Cleric is dead, Hightown is in flames, the Gallows is gone, you’re sheltering the instigator, and your cousin has vanished after murdering the Knight Commander. I have no idea how I’m supposed to explain any of this.” Leliana muttered, rubbing her forehead.

“Technically, the Knight Commander actually died to the massive dragon that showed up and set fire to things before disappearing. My brother was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but…” Carver pointed out, shrugging at the disbelieving stares he got from everyone but Anders, who was trying to hide a grin.

“A dragon appeared out of thin air, killed Meredith Stannard, and promptly vanished back into the aether? That’s your story?” Leliana demanded, hand moving from her temples to pinch the bridge of her nose when the young warden just shrugged at her. “I don’t even… Never mind. Amell, I have to go try to fix some of this mess. Just keep him out of trouble and out of sight for a while. Not everyone in the Chantry is going to go along with Warden autonomy or let you bully them into it with something like this involved.”

“Noted,” Mikel shrugged, nudging his wardens into moving farther along the path as the bard headed down towards the city.

 

Cullen had sent those of his men too injured or exhausted to continue back to barracks, steeling himself to keep working. They had finally gotten the fires under control, both in Hightown and across the bay in the Gallows itself. The abominations and demons they had come across had been dealt with, and what mages were left had fled. He could still see the sheer hatred in the eyes of the ones that had stayed to fight, that had chosen death by blade or demon over surrendering to the Templars. Didn’t they understand this was for their protection, the perils that awaited them away from the Chantry’s light? Commander Meredith might have become a bit harsh over the last months, but she had always meant well.

It had occurred to him, as they cleared the gallows room by room, how few mages his men were encountering, dead or otherwise.The Senior Enchanters, all but a few of the Aquitarians or Libertarians that hadn’t specialized in combat, and every single one of the apprentices were just… missing. They had found a small handful of Loyalists locked in one of the smaller libraries, willing to explain that one of the fabled underground had snuck into the Gallows with a plan to get everyone out. 

The Underground had been brazen enough to stage raids on the Gallows itself before, but not for months. Not since he had gotten enough of their names and addresses from Sampson to bring them down. The Knight Captain had known there were some he had missed, but a scarce handful of apostates reduced to hiding like rats couldn’t possibly… Clearly they could possibly, as much as the idea of a tragedy like the Chantry being nothing but a distraction pained him. Two dozen Templars and priests slain with the Grand Cleric, not to mention the dozens more that had fallen during the fights.  Just to unleash a few hundred renegade mages and half trained apprentices on the Free Marches. He shuddered to think of the destruction they could cause before they were found.

Worse, the fires set before he and the other Templars had made it back to the island had been focused on the phylactery chamber and the record rooms. Not only was the easiest way to track the escaped mages destroyed, any record of what mages had been there, where they had come from or even how many there had been was now utterly consumed. Unless a family bragged of a returned mage child, no one would know it was back in their midst. And so many of the families would take them back, despite the dangers and the Chantry disapproval. Even here in Kirkwall, even after Elthina’s death, his men had gotten short shrift from the townfolk that had been out and about.

The nobles were outraged at the desecration of the Chantry, at the damage to their homes and city. The common folk were coming to look, but they were whispering entirely separate sentiments, skittering away from Cullen and his men like they were plague ridden. “They’re saying the healer did this,” someone hissed to their companion at the edge of his hearing. 

“I’ve heard all that, but something had to drive the healer to it,” someone on the other side was grumbling. 

“They’ll raise taxes to fix this, and all so the nobs don’t have to look at a mess. Maker knows it never helped anyone else.”

“I heard they took his kid, or his lover’s kid or something.” 

“I’ve seen all the pamphlets around. Mages didn’t need to be up there when they could have been helping us back home.”

“Little blond that was in the clinic all the time? Cute kid. And everyone knows what happens to mages that get taken up there.”

“Place was called the Gallows. Nothing good ever comes of a place like that.”

“The healers got my sister Jenna out last year, and the stories she told… Barely got her out of the city before the Templars got her again, poor girl.”

“I asked the Underground to look in on my eldest. I hadn’t heard from her since they stopped letting them have letters decades ago. She’d been one of those poor Tranquil for years. Probably said no to the wrong Templar boy.”

“If the Templars tried to take my Orielle, if...Maker forbid they hurt her, I’d have stormed the wretched place myself.”

“I heard they were going to murder all the poor mages they had caged up there, and the healers weren’t gonna stand for that.” a speaker spat in the direction of Cullen’s boots, glaring at the armored warrior. “Pity to lose the clinic, but if they had to leave, it isn’t their fault.”

“Enough!” the knight captain roared, hand on his sword. “People, innocent people, were slaughtered today. Have you no pity or decorum?”

“Aye, rich Chantry nobs and your people die, and it’s a pity. My brother tried to come home for a day when our mother died, and your innocent people dragged him from her deathbed to execute him.” A rough looking man snarled, fingers around a blacksmith’s hammer.

“Lots of innocents are gonna die again if we don’t have the healers and the clinic when snowfever hits.” A fishwife with a massive knife was next to him, looking far too frantic for comfort.

“Maybe if there weren’t any more Templars here, the healers could come back?” Someone behind them suggested, and Cullen flinched at the hand on his shoulder pulling him away from the crowd.

“Back to the guard barracks, and I’ll try to calm them down,” one of the city guards whispered, before stepping in front of the Templars. “This lot is just trying to do their job, alright? Just because it’s a bad job they’re given… “

Sampson pulled his helmet back off, half dragging Cullen back to the presumed safety of the city guard and its headquarters. “Well, that’s going about as well as we could expect,” he muttered, when the door shut behind him and the few other Templars still with them.

“What, precisely, do you mean by that, Raleigh?” Cullen growled at the former exile from the ranks.

“You broke the back of the underground with what you got out of me, but you missed the leaders. The brains, the heart, the ones convincing people that mages were the victims of wicked Templars. The ones proving that mages outside the circle can do more to help their common man than a thousand chantries preaching empty comfort.” Sampson dropped into a chair, reaching for the extra lyrium draught in his pocket. “The healers didn’t even need to lie to paint you lot as the villains, you realize. They just had to let a few escaped mage girls talk to their families about what really happens up there, and the truth spread. No one blows off that sort of thing when it’s their sister or daughter, mage or not.” Cullen started to draw himself up in indignation, only to catch sight of the guilt written over some of the other Templars’ faces.

“No. You wouldn’t… Meredith wouldn’t allow… Maker.” He sat hard onto the bench against the wall, raking sweat soaked curls back out of his face. “How long has this been going on?”

“Templars have been taking advantage of the fact it’s their word against ours for longer than you’ve been alive, Knight Captain.” the older Templar raised the vial in a mockery of a toast and slammed it back, letting the starlight and blue settle the ache in his head. “But it was at least kept hidden and shameful, something kept for apostates and runaways, before Stannard took over and began punishing any mage who spoke up for fraternization.”

“We tried hunting down the healer, but Darktown is such a maze, and we kept losing people.” one of the younger Templars commented, frustrated and not meeting Cullen’s eyes. “The Knight Lieutenant said he had a plan, but then he didn’t come back.”

“The lady healer, and the Healer’s lady, is a small elf woman, branded with enough lyrium to bleach her hair out to silver.” Sampson told them, trying to restrain himself from licking the last of the lyrium out of his bottle. “Some of you might have seen her.”

“The little Vint Karras lost down the tunnels before we were done with her? Fuck, she was… Oh. Shit.” One of the other young templars straightened abruptly from his slouch on the bench. Cullen looked at him, and the younger man had just enough decency to look somewhat ashamed of himself. “He was my trainer, and she was just a mage, not even a human one. It’s not like I’d do any of that to a person. But the tunnels, the ones the lyrium smugglers use. That’s how they got the mages out, she told whoever found her where Karras kept her, how he got her down there. They run all the way from Darktown out into the mountains.”

“Tunnels were blocked by fire and rubble. I suggested to those still on the island to do what they could clearing it, but they already had enough of a head start… “ Sampson shrugged, looking highly indifferent.

“Better we started getting all this cleared, give the bodies of our brothers and the Grand Cleric a proper funeral before we all vanished chasing the mages.” Cullen stated, pressing back to his feet, still frowning in disappointment at the other Templars. Maker knew he was no stranger to the idea of being attracted to a mage. If he closed his eyes, he could still see delicate little Neria Surana skipping through the library back at the Tower. But he had restrained himself, kept away from the pretty little elf apprentice when the rumors of his partiality surfaced. It had been a pity when she had been found on the rocks at the foot of the Tower. Whether she had fallen from a window or jumped was still a mystery, as much as how she had gotten into one of the upper rooms, into the Templar quarters, to begin with.

The ground shuddered under his feet, as the next shockwave hit and the red light lit the windows, a few thin trails of dust falling from the ceiling. He bolted outside just in time to watch the Gallows, the entirety of the small island, crumble into the deepest part of the bay. With the rest of his order, save the handful still with him, somewhere in the middle of it.

 


	34. Safehouse

“Just around the corner past that stream, and I’ll get you in through the wards.”  Anders nudged past his Commander, heading straight for an oddly colored rock. “ No one who doesn’t know the way can find the farm, and no one who means harm to anyone on it can find the bridge over the river to the farmyard. He was putting himself in enough risk by helping me and the underground out I got him what books on warding I could smuggle out. When he ended up the last safehouse, we boosted and double layered the wards, added a few palings. Mostly Merrill and Fox’s work, really. It’s been holding up well.”

“Well, if you’re going to run a farm, I suppose this is the way to do it. What kind of mage is your helpful farmer? Early escapee from the Gallows or a life long apostate?” Amell asked, running a lightly testing spell over the wards as he passed under the barrier. It felt somewhere between old rune sets and a touch of blood magic, familiar only because of his own training. Farther past the wards he could feel orchards and field, protected and enhanced by layers of magic. If you needed to do something as mundane and dull as farming, this was the way to do it, he supposed. Everything here was verdant and blooming, the picture of a thriving farm down to the moss on the edges of the stone bridge.

 “Whoever he is, he’s done well with this place.” Nate noted, as Carver strayed far enough to examine the edge of the field. “This is the sort of farm the freeholders back home dreamed of.”

“Father used to spell the gardens safe from pests like this, but he never taught Bethany or Gerard the trick. Said it was beyond them, and then he got sick.” Carver muttered, smiling at the almost ripe, pristine fruit heavily laden on every branch. “Spells against pests,spells to keep the plants healthier, to enhance the fruit. Would have made the farm in Lothering easier if we had a way to refresh the magic.”

Anders was staring back at Amell with a mildly confused expression. “He was in Kinloch with us, Amell.You don’t know?  Jowan came over with some of the first refugees during the blight, said you turned him loose with the instructions to keep himself safe and stay out of trouble.” 

“Jowan? Really?” Mikel grinned. The younger mage had been worse for wear the last time he saw him, battered, bruised and hunted by all of Redcliffe. For someone who might have charitably been called his sidekick back in the Tower, and more frequently was referred to as a tag along for whatever schemes he got up to, Jowan had been a pretty good friend. There was, of course, the time he had nearly gotten Amell made tranquil after he revealed himself as a blood mage and escaped the Templars, the incident that had ended in Duncan conscripting the battle mage to the wardens. Really, no matter how much trouble he had gotten into with Jowan as a partially willing accomplice, what kind of friend learned dangerous, forbidden magic and didn’t at least offer to teach his friends? He’d finally learned it on his own, and he had offered to teach it to Anders after he conscripted the blond healer. The fact Anders had basically shoved his fingers in his ears and wandered off singing “I’m not listening!” over the offer was not the point. “Maker’s balls, how did you talk Jowan into risking a settled place like this to actually help you?”

“As a matter of fact, he volunteered.” Anders shrugged, as the fieldstone buildings came into view ahead. “I might have made a few potentially guilt inducing statements before hand. He’s always been easy to talk into things he’s going to complain about the whole time.”

A short, thin faced man came around a corner between the barns, muck coating his rough clothing. “Anders, you’re finally here! We were all starting to worry… Maker’s breath.” He ran a hand nervously back through his almost black hair, adding layers of grime to the straw tangled into it. He took a few steps forward towards the mage in gleaming, blue enameled armor, stopping himself short and shaking his head. “Maker, it is you. Mikel Amell, I didn’t… I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

Mikel closed the rest of the distance to the younger mage, pulling him into a one armed hug and digging his knuckles into the tangled hair as Jowan attempted to pull back. “Jowan, if the years in the Tower didn’t kill me, what chance did the darkspawn have of bringing down this much awesome? Should have stuck with us, soaked up some of the glory from the whole Archdemon thing.” He finally let go, wiping the dirt on his fingers off on Jowan’s rough tunic. “For someone who used to hide in the library for hours, you’re doing a passable imitation of a dirtclod farmboy.”

“Hey now, the former dirtclod farmboys present take offense to that, don’t we, Carver?” Anders drawled, letting every bit of what backwater Anderfells was left in his accent present itself to exaggeration. The younger man shrugged, dusting a bit of road dirt off his armor pointedly, and Nate broke out laughing at the look on the healer’s face. 

“Says the man with a pile of dead ravens on his shoulders,” Jowan snorted, even as he finger combed a bit of the dirt back out of his hair, looking down at the work muck that covered him self consciously. “I spent half the time in that library dreaming of a life like this, Amell, even if… Even if I’m not with the person I thought I’d be.”

“These are enchanted simir feathers, an essential part of the protections on my coat!” Anders huffed in a much more normal voice, a small smile on his face despite the irritated comment, and the roughly dressed mage chuckled.

“I’m glad you’re happy, Jowan. I was afraid you’d run afoul of Templars or do something stupid trying to get that Chantry girl of yours back.” Amell grinned at his old friend, remembering a shy apprentice and the mousy young Sister he had been besotted with, as well as a thousand schemes and adventures under the Templar’s bucket helmeted noses. “You’re famous in the Tower now, by the way.”  Jowan looked up in surprise, and Mikel laughed. “Pulling a Jowan is now code for ‘stupid, dangerous plan with almost no chance of success’. According to our favorite priss Finn, anyways. I had to stop by the Tower a few years ago.”

“How is master ‘allergic to dust and trouble’ doing, then?” Anders asked, a wry smile on his face as Jowan spluttered. “He wasn’t a bad healer, if never in my league.” Admittedly, that had been one of his saving graces when he got hauled back from his umpteenth escape. Even with Wynne and Finn serving as models of spirit healer behavior, his talent had kept him valuable enough not to put down out of hand. At least as long as he didn’t put up a fight when the Templars caught up. And went along with whatever they demanded as proof of his continued harmlessness, he thought, suppressing a shudder at the memory of Finn putting him back together when the Templar hunters had gone too far. Over, done with, and never again, he reminded himself. He was stronger now, he had allies. Friends. Fox.

“He got sent along with me when I went looking for Morrigan, actually, as the Circle’s resident linguist. He whined, he got his feet wet, and then he ran off with a pretty Dalish girl rather than go back to the Circle or his bribe happy family. They seemed happy, last I heard.” Both the other mages were staring at the Warden in shock, and he shrugged. 

Jowan shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “Okay, so first of all, my fucking plan worked amazingly. Phylactery was destroyed, and I made it out of the Tower and halfway across Ferelden before Loghain’s men caught me.” He pointedly ignored the snort and muttered “staying uncaught is always the trick” from the blond healer. “If it wasn’t for Lily freaking out at the bloodmagic and refusing to come with me, it would have been perfect. Second, Florian Phineas Horatio Aldebrant, coward, Templar’s pet and tattletale extraordinaire, ran away. With a wild Dalish elf. You’re fucking serious about that.”

“Your plan worked amazingly? Including the part where I would have ended up tranquil in your place if Duncan hadn’t conscripted me?” Amell demanded, and Jowan looked away sheepishly.

“I didn’t think they’d be that upset with you. Figured you’d get a week of so of solitary, like me the time Anders talked me into covering up one of his runs, or the time I helped you raid the Templar quarters for the good booze. Irving adored you.” Jowan pointed out to the other dark haired mage, who shrugged, unable to keep up the facade of anger. “But Finn actually ran? No permission, never going back kind of ran? That seems so…” Amell shrugged again.

“Fresh air and time away from Templars does good even for the most broken of us, apparently.” Anders flexed his shoulders, managing to look vindicated as the other mages rolled their eyes, nodding slowly. “The fields look good and the wards seem to be holding, Jowan. Any problems thus far?”

“Not as such. Our shiny new refugees had to be broken into groups to make it through some of the trickier crossings, and the last few stragglers are still on their way. Under the mountain is a shorter path than over it, but ...” The shorter mage glanced back over the hard packed dirt of the farmyard, nervously checking the speckled chickens scratching between the thatched buildings.  “Tanya and I got the first groups settled into the big barn, but you’ll want to check them over. The smuggler tunnels are a hard enough thing to travel without the kind of conditions we’ve been finding the Gallows mages in.” He caught the healer by the sleeve with a broken nailed hand as he started past. “Anders, you were supposed to be here hours ago. What happened?”

“I… I made a few creative last minute edits to the plan, made it a bit more of a statement, tried to buy a little more time before the Templars got back.” Anders admitted, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “Luckily, our glorious Commander here turned up and saved me from ending up a martyr to the cause.”

Jowan raised a thick eyebrow, whistling. “It got that bad out there? You did what you thought was best, I suppose, but Maker… I’m just gonna say you’re a braver man than I, and I will pray for your continued health.” Anders looked back at him, head tilted in puzzlement, and Jowan chuckled.  “If I’d pulled that kind of stunt behind her back, my wife would feed me to the hogs. Or at least have me sleeping with them.”

“I was under the impression mages couldn’t marry without official Chantry permission?” Nate asked, several past conversations coming to his mind .

“See, Tanya and I found a really simple solution to that.” Jowan grinned as Anders sighed. “It’s called ‘lie about being a mage’. No one in the Chantry cares enough to ask many questions of a pair of nearly itinerant farmers getting hitched, especially given the state Tanya was in.”

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure my father made use of that trick as well.” Carver commented. “It’s not like most backwater Chantry mothers are going to demand proof someone isn’t a mage.”

“Well, I’m not really in danger of getting Fox into that condition,” Anders interjected in an almost sullen tone. “And lying over something like that.. It isn’t… I can’t… Lets just say it feels unjust, and leave it at that, even though the fact I’d have to is unjust of itself.” His hands fisted in frustration, blue flickering over the skin.

“Even easier is finding a lover who doesn’t give a flying fuck about the Chantry or it’s rules. Morri and I did it Chasind style. We’re married because we say we’re married, and I’ll fight anyone who steps between us or disagrees.”  Amell smiled fondly, hefting his staff for emphasis as Anders heading unerringly to the closer of the two barns. “Nate mentioned his girlfriend, but I didn’t know you were in the Free Marches, much less married, Jowan.”

“Tanya’s inside getting ready to feed a barnful of scared, exhausted mages, but I think I can work around her long enough to get you lot some tea before dinner.” He brushed at his tunic again, wrinkling his nose. “Just let me get the chores finished and cleaned up.”

 

Tanya turned out to be a softly pretty redhead, unmistakably pregnant, using magic liberally to keep the clean scrubbed kitchen in motion as ingredients flew into a massive pot. The young boy noisily banging wooden spoons against a pile of copper bowls resembled his mother only in the bright, carroty curls falling over his doe brown eyes, and Amell found himself trying to find any likeness of his childhood friend in the boy. 

Jowan gave him an unreadable look as he finally joined them, his hair falling into wet waves over a clean tunic. “You’ve got a nice place here,” Amell noted, leaning back in a chair as he took the mug of tea he was offered. He stared into it for a moment, pulling a battered flask out of his pack and adding a generous splash.

“It was my Father’s. He was willing to take us in after the Underground got me out of the Gallows, and glad enough that the boy I brought home seemed willing to put a hand to farm work.” Tanya leaned over, pressing a kiss to Jowan’s cheek. “And willing to make an honest woman of me before the babe came.”

“I’m still grateful you were willing to have me, knowing what I was.” Jowan ran a nervous hand over the layered scars over his wrist, before laying a protective hand over the swell of her belly. “That the locals seem willing to forget exactly why old Daffyd’s daughter was gone for better than a decade, to make excuses for the green mistakes his son in law made as he settled in.”

“If spilling a little blood keeps us safe and the farm going, keeps the Templars from our doors, I’m for it, dearest.”  Tanya rested her hand over his, smiling softly over at the boy in the corner. “I know well enough what I would have lost if I’d stayed where I was.”

Anders slid into the remaining chair, looking far more tired than his brief absence should account for. “Most everyone is in fair enough health I’d feel okay about trying to contact their families and get them home as soon as the heat dies down a touch. That will still leave you with more than enough with nowhere in particular to go that your harvest labor force should be easily handled once you teach them the spells, Jowan.” The younger mage shrugged nonchalantly, and the blond rubbed wearily at his temples. “There are a number I’m going to refer over to Fox when she gets here, though.”

“The incomparable Anders has to pass healing over to another mage?” Nate started to tease, until he recognized the look the mages were sharing. “This is going to be one of those things…”

“It’s one of those things where handing them over to a female healer for the moment is going to be far better for everyone involved, yes.” Anders took the spiked tea Amell handed him, staring at the grain of the table top.

“Templars?” Nate asked softly, wincing as all the mages in the room looked at him like he had asked if the sky was supposed to be blue.

“Congratulations, Howe, you’re capable of basic pattern recognition. Maybe you aren’t as stu…”  Anders caught himself, shaking his head and gulping at the alcohol laced tea. “I shouldn’t take this out on you.”

“Bad as I was when you got me out?” Tanya asked quietly, her gaze flickering over to her son again, who was staring at the unhappy adults with an uncertain look in his eyes, the ersatz drums forgotten for a moment.

“A couple worse, if not as far along. Whatever they decide, we can help them, before finding them somewhere to go.” The healer sighed, leaning back in his chair and letting those oddly bicolored eyes slide closed. “I should have pushed the plan through sooner, gotten them out earlier.”

“Don’t go blaming yourself for this, healer. It’s a mighty task to rescue people who aren’t willing. Until the Knight Commander finally went over that last edge, most of the Gallows was planning to hunker down and wait for things to get better.” the redhead leaned back into her husband as he rose to wrap his arms around her. “I should get the soup finished. Maker knows everyone will be starving by the time the last group makes it in.”

Jowan kissed her fondly, turning to scoop the four year old off the floor and tickle him into giggles. “I’ll get our little Todd into bed for the night then, before we end up talking about anything else little ears shouldn’t hear.”

 


	35. Reunions

“Carver!” Merrill skipped across the small room, hugging the youngest Warden enthusiastically. “I thought you were off doing important Warden things. Did you see any griffons?” The other three wardens concealed their amused smiles as best they could, Anders waving slightly at the auburn haired elven warrior leaning against the door. 

“Haven’t seen any griffons yet, Merrill. I promise I will name the first baby griffon I meet Feathers for you. On my honor.” Carver promised, glancing from the Dalish First smiling brightly at him to the tall, Dalish tattooed elf in the doorway. “Important Warden business somehow turned into rescuing Anders after the stunt with the Chantry.”

“Anders, you were supposed to meet us here hours ago, not need…” A small ginger head poked out from behind Doshiel, interrupting Merrill’s remark with an excited squeal.“Uncle Anders!”

“Meeka girl!” He scrambled out of his chair in time to hoist the five year old up onto his hip, spinning her around as she babbled about the things she had seen on the trip. As she eventually fell asleep mid tangled sentence, head pillowed on the feathered shoulder of his coat, he noticed the look the other former Tower mages were giving him. “What?” He dropped back into his seat, adjusting the sleeping elven child automatically. She burrowed closer into him, fingers tight around the feathers.

“You’re just being disturbingly domestic. To see the untameable Anders, the despair of the Senior Enchanters… and of every matchmaking mother in Amaranthine… cheerfully tending to an elven child he can’t possibly have fathered.” Amell smirked, spreading his hand dramatically.

Jowan cleared his throat. “What does the chance of his having fathered her have to do with anything? I’ve seen how those two are with the girls. If those aren’t their kids yet, they will be unless Tara has a vision from Andraste pointed enough to change her mind.” He glanced over his shoulder, checking to see how busy his wife was with the cooking. “Tanya had to get out of the Gallows because she was pregnant, that’s how we met. Todd is my son now, and whatever part the Templar who… meddled with his mother played is irrelevant to that.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Mikel huffed softly, watching Anders gently tracing soothing circles over Meeka’s back, willing her to stay asleep for this. “I just assumed when he asked to stop by here long enough to pick up his family, that he meant the girlfriend Nate told me about. I didn’t think… Anders with adopted kids is a weird thought.”

“It wasn’t exactly something Fox or I planned. The girls needed training to keep them safer from the Templars, to keep them from scaring their mother into calling them. They’ve been spending more and more time with us, until the Templars caught Kally.” the blond admitted, hearing the door open quietly behind them. “Jowan has one thing wrong though. Tara’s threatened to drown the magic out of them repeated while Darin was still alive, and the moment he wasn’t protecting his daughters she turned a five year old into the streets. Unless Andraste herself steps out of the Fade and tells me otherwise, Tara is never going to see the girls again.”

“Mamae turned Meeka out?” a small, tremulous voice asked, and the healer shifted to see Kally standing just outside the door with a remarkably long haired Fox and a young teenager barely half an inch taller than the silver haired elf. Anders winced slightly, smoothly shifting Meeka back onto the side of his hip so he could crouch in front of the seven year old. She crumpled into him, crying quietly as he wrapped his free arm around her and pressed his cheek into her blond hair, reassuring himself as much as her. “Ser Thrask said he talked to you and I was gonna be okay, but then he was gone and Ser Will was being mean to Becka even though she’s nice to everyone and they wouldn’t even let us out to the courtyard.” He murmured soothing things against the top of her head as she threw her arms around his neck, getting a little louder as the trembles worked out of her shoulders. “Auntie Fox came and got us all and then someone blew up the Chantry and none of the Templars were there to stop us.”

“That was your Uncle Anders, making sure the Templars were somewhere else long enough I could keep all of you safe. So we could get you out of there.” Fox whispered, running a comforting hand over Kally’s cheek before reaching out to take the smaller girl from him. As Meeka settled onto her hip without more than a sleepy blink, Anders stood, letting Kally take her place snuggled against his somewhat damp coat.

“But where do we go if we can’t go home?” She snuffled miserably against the wool and feathers.

“My folks probably won’t mind a few extras,” the dark haired barely adolescent offered, hunched in on herself uncertainly. She hovered in the doorway, watching the adults in the room ahead as skittishly as a yearling fawn, shooting occasional hopeful glances at Tanya and Fox.

“It’ll be fine, Becka,” Fox remarked in a carefully even tone, watching the girl’s gaze flick to her and back to the Wardens at the table. “If you can go help Tanya take dinner out to the others, I’ll be along in a couple minutes.” Becka nodded, scurrying along the wall into the kitchen.

Anders carefully set Kally back onto her feet, crouching back to her eye level as he cradled her face in his hands. “Your father was from a clan like Miss Merrill’s. If you want, we could find them and take you to them. Or, you… If you’d prefer, you could both stay with us, with me and Fox, and we could be your family. You don’t have to decide anything right away, of course…” She squealed, throwing her arms back around his neck and burying her face into his shoulder as he patted her back.

“We’re still going to talk to your mother, or Merrill and my wanderer are, at any rate. You two are going to stay with us, we just want to check on Rella and Soren.” Fox drummed her fingers lightly along Meeka’s back where she held her, glancing between the kitchen and the blond mage in front of her. “ _ Eanvher _ , I should go sort out a few things with Tanya before we get these two to bed. And when I get a chance, we are going to have a long talk about unnecessary  risks and last minute changes to plans.” She leaned into him carefully for a moment, her free hand trailing up his cheek into his hair, before letting Doshiel take the ginger child off her hip.

 

Fox kept herself in range of Becka as they helped Tanya get bowls of steaming soup out to the mages bedding down in the larger, emptier of the barns. In the end she nudged her into taking her own bowl in the box stall Senior Enchanter Tessa had claimed, with Tanya finding a seat at the other side of the small space. “Looking forward to seeing your family again?” she asked, watching the girl as inconspicuously as possible.

“Oh yes, healer, they’re great. We have an inn over on the road to Ostwick. I know they tried writing after the Templars caught me, I just…” Becka twined her fingers into the ends of her curls, glancing between the Senior Enchanter and the door. “I don’t know if I… Ser Will said if I was nice enough to him, he’d make sure I was transferred to another Circle before… before they put everyone else down.” She stared at her feet, scuffing patterns into the straw and sand. “But that was a month and a half ago, and I didn’t get transferred anywhere, and  I haven’t… I haven’t had my cycle since.”

The elven healer looked at the other mages, both of whom looked grimly resigned, and scooted over next to the girl. “Becka, how old are you?” she asked gently, resting a glowing hand over her abdomen.

“I’ll be thirteen just before Satinalia,” Becka responded, looking up as Tessa carefully applied a worn handkerchief to the dirt crusted tear tracks along her cheeks.

“Well, at your age, stress like this can throw your cycle all over the place. I wouldn’t be surprised if you started later tonight or tomorrow.” The healer smiled reassuringly at the girl, who seemed more hopeful than she had since leaving the Gallows, and paid no attention to the knowing smirk the old mage was hiding or the sharp look Tanya shot her. “As for what happened to you, it wasn’t your fault. You did nothing wrong, Becka. The only one in the wrong was Ser Will.”

“He shouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near you girls,” Tessa muttered. “It’s a sad state of affairs Orsino led us into, when we can’t even protect the most vulnerable of our own.” She rested an arm around the girl’s shoulders, nodding respectfully at Fox as she rose to leave with Tanya. “We owe you a great debt, Lady Healer, you and your Underground. We owe more than can be repaid. It needs to be said before my confederates realize freedom means making their own living and start gilding memories of life in the Circle.”

 

Tanya managed to hold her tongue until they got back to the house, but only barely. “You lied to her,” she hissed, a defensive hand over her own belly.

“No, I told her her cycle would start tonight or tomorrow, which is perfectly true.” Fox noted in a too calm voice. “She’s twelve, she’s traumatized, what did you expect me to say?”

“I expected you to tell her the truth, to give her the choice. The women in the Gallows were given few enough choices without you taking more away from them!” the redhead snapped, indignantly.

“She’s twelve! She’s a child, Tanya. I’m not forcing a child into this kind of choice, between wondering forever what might have been or enduring a pregnancy that could kill her. She isn’t old enough to handle this safely, Maker knows she isn’t old enough to raise another child on her own even if she survived it.” The tiny elven woman snapped, heedless of the men still at the table and looking their way. 

“And how would you really know without any of your own, without anything but strays you’re taking …” The redhead froze mid sentence, seeming to realize what had come out of her voice a moment too late. “I didn’t mean that, Fox, I’m sorry.”

“I was fourteen, at least.” The Tevinter trained elf spoke icily, not looking directly at the other woman as the ends of her hair sparked. “I wasn’t given a choice either, not as the only chance of getting a magically gifted heir out of the Magister’s scapegrace son. Gaius settled a great deal of money on me to sweeten the deal, but I was not given a way out of it. I loved my son despite that, but we had servants. Once he was out of me, any time I spent with him was by choice, borrowed from my studies. And when he was five, proven magical and his Grandfather started the process of cutting his father out of the inheritance, writing me in as his guardian, his Father got me out of the way in the most convenient manner he could think of. Caius is almost nineteen now, and I still can’t get back to him, back to Tevinter, without continuing to jump through a number of legal hoops.” Nate and Amell looked at Anders, who shrugged, completely unsurprised. “He is my own. Kally and Meeka will be just as much mine if they’ll have me and Anders, as much as any we could ever have of our own.” 

“Todd is just as much mine as this one will be, sweetling.” Jowan assured his wife, as Anders reached out to tangle his fingers in the flickering ends of his lover’s hair, tracing a slow path up her spine with blue glowing fingers.

“We’ll get you back to him, love. We’ll find a place for all of us, somewhere.” Anders consoled her, taking the moment  to tug her towards the corner of the loft Jowan had offered them.

  
  
  


“Fenris told me you were dead. That Hawke had handed you over to Vael as easily as he had tried to trade my freedom for Fenris’s, when Danarius came for him.” She whispered when they had settled into the pile of worn blankets. Fox was sprawled across him, face against his chest, fingers tapping to match the steady sound of his heartbeat under her. The restless pattern of his hands in her hair stilled for a moment, and his knuckles brushed softly against her cheek.

“I am so sorry, love. I didn’t intend…” He sighed, staring at the thatched roof above him, the herbs and vegetables hanging from the rafters.

“I know you didn’t. You did what was best for the cause, what would buy our people the most time before the Templars got back.  If I hadn’t run late waiting for Orsino and run into Hawke’s little group, I wouldn’t have had time to be more than slightly worried before you came back to me, unless…” She stretched, fingers flexing against his skin.

“Unless Amell hadn’t come to collect me, and Sebastian’s arrow had flown true.” His fingers strayed back up into her hair, tangling in the long strands. “We might have been fine, even then, as we were after the Templar’s sword…”

“Or you might not have, and left me bereft. Alone. I…” Small fingers traced the scar over his heart, and he could feel the dampness under where her face pressed against his skin. “Anders, I’ve been happier with you than I have ever been. The only time that even comes close was the century I spent exploring with Rasanis. The idea of going back to the way things were, falling back into old habits… hurting people like I did, it disgusts me. I…”

“What did you do when you thought I was dead?” Fox looked up at him at the question, and he pulled himself up into her, resting his forehead against hers. “I’m fairly certain Carver would have mentioned it if you had rendered his brother into charcoal, and I’m not sure he would have given you a choice if you killed or maimed Fenris in front of him.”

“I tossed Fenris into Gerard, but… I hadn’t dealt with the phylacteries or the records yet, let alone collapsed… I went and set fire to things very thoroughly, which managed to burn off enough of the blind rage that when Ras told me you were fine, that Amell had saved you, I was able to listen. I was still furious with everyone involved and worried sick about you, but…” She shook her head slightly before nuzzling against him again, running her hands over his chest. “Used the Knight Commander as a dragon toy before she turned into red lyrium and I had to dragonfire her.”

“You finished what you went there to do, to protect our people, instead of flying off to shred Vael into smoking ashes. What would you have done, before, if someone had threatened anything that was yours?” The blue rings around his deep brown eyes were luminescent in the dimly lit loft, and she could feel the fade magic thrumming where his hand in her hair brushed the veins of lyrium. 

“You are more important than any of the trinkets or pets I used to distract myself with. I would have razed the city to the ground without a second thought for any of them, but… Oh. “ his other hand traced along her cheek, and he smiled up at her with a fair amount of pride. “I was still going to destroy Vael if he had laid a finger on you, you realize. And his precious Starkhaven.”

“Still an improvement, little Fox.” He pulled her down into a kiss. “Carver mentioned how you dispatched Meredith. Sadly, no one seems to believe in giant dragons appearing out of nowhere, so Gerry is getting the credit for the kill.”

Fox took a deep breath and blew it out in a huff. “On one hand, that’s probably for the better. Both to keep that trick up our sleeves a little longer and that her death isn’t directly linked to our group. On the other, I find that supremely irritating, and if he crosses my path again… someday.” Anders started to make an inquiring noise, and she kissed him, carding fingers into his hair. “Part of you is still fond of him, vhenan. You’d accept that I have excellent reasons to kill him, part of your Commander’s family or not, but you’d regret that I did it. That is the only reason he’s still alive, despite how much aggravation he’s caused me.”

“You’re overestimating my attachment, but…I would miss the friend I thought he was, once. So thank you for thinking of it, love.”  The hand further back in her hair slid further down, pressing against the skin just under the hem of the loose tunic she wore. “We seem to find ourselves parents after all, Sweetheart,” he noted, nibbling his way down her jaw to her slim neck, tracing magical flares up the lightning fractals of lyrium that blossomed along her spine. “If half of what Jowan keeps whining about is true, this is likely the closest we’ll get to time alone for a while.”

“The girls are asleep with Jowan’s boy downstairs, but your fellow Wardens are still sharing the loft with us.” Fox pointed out, not making any attempt to dissuade his hands under her tunic as she leaned back down to kiss him again. 


	36. Urthemiel

“Good morning!” Jowan announced, as the Wardens and healers settled at the breakfast table. “Isn’t it a lovely day out today, Anders?”

The blond paused to consider the younger mage, a growing look of suspicion on his face as his spoon of porridge stopped halfway to his mouth. “I’m less likely to hurt anyone if I’m just told what happened, you realize.”

“Tanya took the girls out with Todd to gather eggs this morning, and they managed to find a surprise under the hen house. You’re probably going to want to head that off sooner rather than later, before…” Jowan dropped his gaze to his own bowl as an excited Meeka came scrambling in from the kitchen, a very baffled looking black and white kitten hanging precariously from her arms.

“Uncle Anders! Meet Capn’ Splotch, she lived unner the chickens, and she’s already gonna be my best frien’, after Kally.” She dropped the kitten on the table, where it carefully picked itself up, considered the situation, and began lapping the cream she was ladling into her porridge.

“Before it has a name. Good luck getting that away from her now, and welcome to parenthood, Anders,” Jowan chuckled.

“My kids can have all the kittens and cats they want,” Anders remarked benevolently, catching sight of the slightly raised eyebrows of the short elf sitting next to him. He picked the tiny redhead up with one arm and a mildly protesting kitten in the other, giving Fox and Commander Amell his best pleading eyes. “Why, it would be almost unjust, to deny them such a small, perfect…” She grinned at him, reaching over to pet the scruffy little thing as she kissed his lips and the top of Meeka’s head. “And the greatest Commander ever wouldn’t take…”

“I’m not dragging you back to Weishaupt. We’re gonna go lay low with my family for a while while the worst of this blows over, and then I think your pretty girlfriend is going to sneak you over the Tevinter border. You can have fifty cats and a tiger, for all I care, as long as they don’t upset Mouse.” Amell commented dismissively, smirking a little at the look on Ander’s face. “That was meant as… Don’t actually get fifty cats, please.”

“You can’t have a tiger until we’re back in Tevinter and the children aren’t bite size anymore, either,” Fox added absently, taking her bowl to the kitchen. “My heart, I’m going to go check on the mages, start figuring out who has homes they can get back to.”

 

“Anders, your girlfriend just implied she’s fine with you having a pet tiger eventually.” Howe was rubbing at his temples, staring at the amused mage currently playing on the floor with kitten and child. “That is so… If you ever try to claim the Maker doesn’t like you, I’m going to remind you that you were given your dream girl.”

“Some deity loves me, at any rate,”  the blond retorted softly under his breath. “I’ll settle for a cat or two, really. Keeping a tiger fed seems impractical.” Meeka pouted next to him, her kitten perched on her shoulder, and he laughed. “As brave as our Captain Splotch is, she might end up on the menu. Tigers are big, and hungry, and they like to pounce…” He put action to words, diving over to tickle the five year old into helpless giggles as the young cat attacked his fingers happily. 

“Also, I refuse to believe anyone but you or your spawn would name a cat something that ridiculous. Captain Splotch is just as bad a name as Ser Pounce.” Nate leaned back in his chair, smiling at the scene a great deal more broadly than his tone might imply.

Mikel dug into his bag, pulling out a worn book, turning it over in his hands. “Nate, the name was Ser Pounce a Lot. If you’re going to mock him, mock the name correctly, because from what I’ve learned, he spent years planning that name.” He held out the battered copy of “Spirit Healers throughout the Ages”, enjoying the resigned understanding creeping into the baffled look the healer gave him. “I also learned that he apparently had a bad habit of vandalizing borrowed books when he was younger, and fantasized about tigers eating templars. Shame, Anders.”  

“Says the man who apparently stole from the Tower library,” Anders snorted, grabbing for the book as Amell pulled it out of his reach. When he eventually got hold of it, he handed it to Meeka, flipping it open so she could see the childish doodles, try to sound out the scribbled labels.  “This was my favorite book when I first went to the Tower. I spent hours… Thank you, Commander. Mikel,” he corrected himself at the other mage’s look.

 “You’re not ‘sposed to draw in books,” Kally protested in a scandalized tone, leaning over his shoulder to look at the books in her sister’s hands. “And she’s letting the cat chew on the cover.”

“We’ll get you your own books that you can keep anyone from meddling with,” Anders offered, smiling up at her until she plopped next to her sister to look at the book, sticking her tongue out at him.  “And your own cat, if you’d like one.” 

“Kittens are cute, but I druther have a puppy. Becka said she had a puppy back at the inn, an’ it slept on her bed and chased sticks all day, an’ was really smart and learned bunches of tricks. Cats aren’t good at tricks,” the blonde seven-year old informed him, bouncing a bit without getting up. “Can.. can I really have my own books?”

"Of course. If you’re staying with me and your Auntie Fox, you’ll need plenty of books to keep up with your lessons, both of you. First, of course, we’ll need to get you new clothes, unless apprentice robes are much less itchy than I remember.” She made a face at him, tugging at the collar of the blue wool robes as he slung an arm around her shoulders and laughed. “Good to know cheap wool is still scratchy as anything. We’ll go shopping when we have a chance, get you and Meeka kitted out.”

“For a few weeks, until they outgrow it all,” Amell remarked, sharing a rueful smile with Jowan. “At least books last longer. Welcome to life as a parent, Anders. It involves an entirely different form of budgeting than running a clinic.”

“We’ll manage,” the healer shrugged as the other two mages glanced at each other and seemed less than reassured. “No, really. We’ve a little saved for the travel, and Fox has resources.”

“I do, in fact. My so charming Rasanis left a few shiny trinkets I can pawn off if we need funds in a hurry, and I’ve managed to hear enough back from some old friends in Carastes to know a number of the investments set up in my name are doing quite well. Probably better than they would have if I’d been there to meddle with them, actually. I wasn’t the most financially savvy at nineteen,” Fox flicked a hand dismissively, shaking her head slightly. “I wasn’t really savvy at anything past research and healing, to be honest. As evidenced by the fact I fell for Gage’s little sob story about ‘just wanting to see his only child’ long enough for him to dose me with magebane… again...  and hand me over to his favorite gambling buddy.” She shrugged, dropping to the floor next to the children and ending up with a both a kitten and a yawning Todd in her lap. Meeka leaned against her, showing her the book, and Fox smirked before running her fingers over the girl’s hair fondly.

“People do stupid things when they’re young. The number of things Jowan and I got up to in the Tower… The time Anders managed to ruin beach day for everyone,” Mikel noted, smirking.

“I was fourteen, and that was one of my best escape attempts, thank you.” Anders slid a hand into a rude gesture behind his back where the girls wouldn’t see it. “Kinhold Circle is a Tower on a really small island in the middle of a deep lake. The only way on or off was a set of tiny rowboats, kept under close Templar supervision, or so they thought.” He started, leaning forward dramatically as the kids eagerly watched him. “The closest thing Kinhold had to the courtyard the Gallows had was a trip to the narrow, rocky beach once a week, where the apprentices were expected to run around the Tower long enough to burn off youthful energy. A couple designated Templars were out there to watch us, but they usually ended up sitting on a rock and talking. So one day, after I’d been in the Tower a couple years, I got on the opposite side of the island from our keepers, stripped off the itchy wool nonsense, and started swimming.” His audience made suitably impressed noises, and he grinned. “By the time the bucketheads noticed what I was doing and started unlatching one of the boats, I was halfway to shore. By the time they got ahold of my phylactery to track me, I was halfway to Denerim. Sadly, the rest of my brilliant plan fell through when I couldn’t find a Tevinter bound ship to stow away on before the Templars caught up. Not that ‘get to Tevinter, let them see what an awesome mage I was, get named Archon,’ was really that great of a plan to begin with.”

“And beach day was permanently canceled. No more outdoor running for us, or outdoor anything, so half the other apprentices were intent on making his life miserable once he got thrown back in with us.” Jowan remarked, a regretful note to his tone. “Was a couple months of freedom really worth it?”

“Worth the next couple years of having every nasty prank possible pulled on my bunk, or my first taste of what the Templars could do to us when they stopped seeing us as children?” Anders asked, his voice wavering enough Fox scooted closer and laced her fingers into his. “I...Yes, Maker, yes it was. Those months… It reminded me that the world outside the Tower was still there, that I was still a person, no matter what I had been told… I chopped firewood for a slice of the best pie ever, I slept under the stars, I lost my… er, favorite socks,” he cut himself off, remembering his audience. He flexed his fingers at Fox’s snorted “smooth,vhenan,” running his thumb fondly over her palm. “Worth everyone else losing the only bit of fresh air we were allowed, perhaps not, but I don’t know if I could stop myself doing it again.” He shrugged somewhat apologetically at the other mages, before smiling at the elf beside him. “Especially if I knew what might be waiting for me in Tevinter.  I’d probably wait until Solace instead of swimming the lake in late Drakonis, though. The water was a lot colder than I expected.”

“You swam at least a half mile through water only a week away from having ice chunks floating. It’s impressive, but still incredibly stupid.” Amell pointed out.  “Of course, my brilliant plan to steal the good booze out of the drawer in Knight Commander Gregoir’s desk had a similar lack of critical thinking. It was a fun party while it lasted, though.”

“And then it got us both a taste of solitary. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I remember how much trouble I got into any time either of you talked to me. Why were we friends again?” Jowan pointed out, and Anders shrugged. 

“Because a six year old following me like a lost gosling as I learned my way around the Tower was a convenient distraction when I needed to avoid Templars? And a nine year old who wasn’t whining about beach day was the closest thing I had to companionship for a while. Even if you were only there because you needed me to reach the intermediate entropy books, and the eleven year old dragging you into adventures just cared about the advanced primal compendium on the top shelf.”  The healer smirked at the others, wincing slightly as sharp kitten claws dug into his leggings. 

“Because you’d already been there for two years when I was thrown in, and letting a brat two years my junior show me around the Tower was better than asking the damn Templars where my next class was. And then because you were really easy to talk into playing my loyal sidekick, when Neria wasn’t telling us both off and nagging us into studying.” Amell added, and Jowan sighed heavily, toying with the mug in front of him.

“I suppose. I… What happened to her was really the last straw before I started studying more troublesome magic. She followed all the stupid rules. She was the perfect example of what they wanted apprentices to be, and they still broke…” Jowan pulled his son up onto his lap, hugging him close. “If innocence is no protection, then whether you do good or evil is immaterial. I’m certain the people here who grew up without Templars did stupid sh...stuff when they were teenagers as well. Spill.”

“I was stupid enough as a teenager I wanted to be a Templar for a while. Mostly to stop my siblings freezing all my stuff,” Carver lightly volunteered, shrugging at the look most of the other adults in the room gave him. “And then on my eighteenth birthday, I signed up with the army to go fight at this nifty place called Ostagar. Really stupid, entirely too many darkspawn.”

“I decided it was a great idea to sneak into a Warden fortress with the plan of murdering the Commander for executing my father.” Nate added, feet up on the table until his boots started smoking. “Clearly working out wonderfully for me,” he remarked, yanking his feet back to safety with a sigh.

  
  
  
  


A charitable sort of person might describe the house in the middle of the secluded glade as a rundown cottage. The more honest would call it a glorified hut built by someone without a single lesson in carpentry. It seemed to step out of a cautionary tale about witches in woods, all untidy thatch and crooked boards, as unkempt as the dark forest surrounding it. Far more work had been put into the yard around it, where a few gnarl horned goats and speckled grey chickens picked their way between the thorny outer hedges and the neatly fenced garden. 

“Mother said you’d be back yesterday,” the small boy announced accusatively of Amell the moment the Warden stepped into the gate, gold eyes gleaming slightly in the dappled light.

“I know, Kieran. We were just delayed a little. This is my good friend Anders and his family. Go tell your mother we’re back.” Mikel ruffled the boys hair affectionately. The boy glanced over the other mages indifferently, until he saw Fox, and both their eyes widened. 

“You’re very old.” Kieran remarked, tipping his head to the side as he considered the healer. “Your blood is like Mother’s. Why are you so short?”

“Because then no one asks me to get things off tall shelves, da’len. Who’s your mother?” Fox asked smoothly, regarding him as intently as he was her.

“Mother is the inheritor of the next age. You aren’t supposed to be here, on this side of the mirror, not yet.” Amell was watching his son with a resigned look, flicking occasional puzzled glances between Fox and Anders.

“I didn’t like it there, and it would take a cleverer trap than that one to hold a fox forever,” she assured him, the pupils of her eyes going increasingly slitted. “How long it might keep holding my siblings is a different tale.”

“Will you teach me?” the golden eyed boy asked, after a long, thoughtful silence. “When I’m ready?”

“When you’re ready, if you don’t find your wings on your own,” she agreed, and he grinned at her before running back through the gate.  “I suppose I should have guessed from Anders’ tales, but I didn’t think it of a Grey Warden. Urthemial?”

“Probably. Anders, I have urgent and pressing questions about your little girlfriend,” Mikel’s aura flared, the spell enchanted blade leaving its sheath as he stepped forward, only to find himself dangling upside down with cords of blue fire wrapped around the tops of his boots.

“Firefox,” Anders rumbled warningly, eyes flaring blue as he planted his staff in the ground. 

“I’m controlling it. I just think this conversation will be easier if…” Another cord of flame coiled around the sword, catching it and pulling it to the ground. “If there aren’t weapons being waved about.  He has an awfully large sword, he isn’t compensating for anything, is he?” she asked, tipping her head to consider the large raven sitting at the top of the hedge.

“Surprisingly, not that I’m aware of. If I vouch for my Warden, will you forgive his lack of caution?” The beautiful woman dropped easily to the ground as she shifted back, her cat gold eyes as fixed on Fox as her son’s had been. “Despite his foolhardiness, I find myself … fond of him. I am called Morrigan.”

The elven healer nodded agreeably, and the flaming cords set the Warden Commander gently back to the ground. “Daughter of Flemeth, raised as a Witch of the Wilds, if I believe the stories my Anders keeps repeating.  I’m usually called Halisa, translated to Foxfire by most of my friends. I apologize for any worry I caused you or your mate, and mean no harm to your charming son.” She glanced over at the dark haired man dusting himself off, and smiled. “I imagine he’s a little concerned about me on his doorstep, if what Anders says of his later interactions with Flemeth are true.”

“Anders, please tell me Carver’s little story about a dragon eating the Knight Commander wasn’t actually your girlfriend,” Amell hissed, trying to restrain the urge to step between his wife and the tiny healer mage. “Morri, I’ll…”

“She isn’t my Mother and she doesn’t mean us harm at the moment, my Warden,” Morrigan remarked without breaking the eye contact she held. “I suspect anything else can be discussed over dinner.” She opened the gate, and Fox followed her in, smiling brightly, a small pair of confused elf girls at her heels.

“Anders, seriously…” Mikel repeated, wiping the dirt of the sword before he sheathed it. “What did we just bring to my house? Is this something I’ll have to...”

The healer sighed, the blue receding back to the outer rings of his eyes. “The elves called her Sylaise, before their fall,” Justice admitted, his voice rumbling even as he lowered his tone. “As impetuous and temperamental as her kind was, this one has pledged herself to my cause, to me. More to the point, she has accepted your wife’s invitation to dinner.”

“How is that… Old rules and magics, the kind Mouse has told me about,” the Warden caught himself. “Maker’s balls. It’s really disconcerting to get yanked upside down by fire that isn’t burning you, you realize.”

“It’s rather disconcerting to discover your Warden Commander is raising an Archdemon’s soul,” Anders countered, the duality falling out of his voice, smirking at the sour look Amell gave him. “She is the dragon that killed the Knight Commander, yes, although that isn’t her preferred form.”

“I suppose I should apologize to Carver someday for that, then.” Amell leaned back against the hedge, staring over at where Fox was apparently complimenting the garden as Morrigan showed her around. “And his older brother, for taking the fall.”

“Gerard only survived the culmination of several bad decisions because your pet assassin is sleeping with her high priest, and they asked nicely after telling her I was fine,” the blond snorted. “Because you asked them to look after him. I admit, I expected you to… You have heard that Flemeth flew him out of the path of the horde, and he used an ancient elven ritual to bring her back when he got her, right? I’ve had to listen to more whining about the fact she wouldn’t teach him how to be a dragon…”

“Repeat that, please. Repeat the part where the evil mother-in-law I almost died killing is back among the living, the evil, creepy, ancient mother-in-law potentially intending to possess my wife, because I am desperately hoping I misheard you.” When the healer only looked at him, he swore, slamming his fist into the thorny hedge. “Andraste’s fucking flaming tits.  If I see him again, I’m killing him, family or not. How long has she been back?”

“At least six years. But you’ll have to get in line to kill him, considering how often he’s crossed Fox. Trying to hand me over to Starkhaven was about the end of her tolerance for him as part of my social group.” Anders reminded his Commander, who snorted, pulling his mangled hand out of the hedge. “Need me to fix that?”

Mikel considered the blood dripping off his hand, and dragged it over the hedge, which glowed dimly for a moment before shooting up another foot. Esoteric symbols painted the air before him, illuminating a dark red dome around this corner of the forest. When they faded back into the aether, he slumped, pale and exhausted, holding out his hand to the other mage. Without a word, a coil of blue light wrapped around it, fading into unmarked skin.

 

 

“You have a number of names, apparently,” Amell noted as he joined the table, sitting between his son and the silver haired elf. 

“ The one you’re thinking of is more of a title than a name, but yes. The longer I live, the more I seem to acquire. My Mother used to say that names were pretty, but pointless.” Fox remarked, snagging a slice of bread to butter. “Sadly, the number of things I am increasingly forced to admit she was right about doesn’t change the fact she was a horrid bi.. Horridly bad parent,” she amended, smiling at Kally and Meeka. Anders made a small noise, and she huffed quietly at him. “The amount of justice she handed out to petitioners does not make the lack of it in her own house any better. Parents are supposed to at least pretend not to have favorites.”

“You had siblings then?” Morrigan asked, eyes going intent again at the description of Fox’s mother. That was a remarkably familiar saying.

“Three, all far older. My sister was always Mother’s favorite, and all the arrows I had to pull out of my back never changed that for a moment. She was her golden huntress, and I couldn’t do anything right… at least when she was paying any attention to me at all.” She passed the slice of bread over to Meeka, and started buttering Kally’s, adding a small swipe of butter to the side of Meeka’s plate closest to where Captain Splotch was already climbing up. “My brothers just didn’t care enough not to leave me behind. I’d probably still be stuck in that cave if it wasn’t for…” She hesitated, staring down at her own plate. “A friend of Mother’s ended up looking after me most of the time, between how busy my parents were and how little my siblings could be bothered. Helped me remove the arrows, let me out of places I ended up trapped, taught me a fair amount of my first magic tricks. Closest thing I had to family that cared, once upon a time.”

“What happened to him then, if you don’t mind me asking?” Amell leaned forward on the table, trying not to think about the scattered shreds of his own family. Maybe he should have looked up his Uncle Quentin while he was in Kirkwall.

“I grew up, I grew apart, I… No matter how big the wall you build, fencesitting never makes anyone happy, and you have to end up on one side or the other eventually. Neither side was… His side was right, actually, but I would have had to break with everything I had ever… If I had even been invited to, which I wasn’t.”  She picked up her bread and set it down, adding more layers of ornately swirled butter. “Uncle was the one who nicknamed me Fox, as much as I managed to make of it later.” A runt of a fox, all over sized ears and feet, tagging optimistically at the heels of a wolf. Proud though he was, he had meant it kindly enough, more than she could say for any of the epithets her sister had attached to her. And he had been the only one of the family ever pleased by the sentimental streak that kept her taking in her siblings’ castoffs, who hadn’t mocked the number of strays she collected. That hadn’t scolded her for meddling with the other Evanuris’ people, for backing her own people against the other’s whims. 

In retrospect, she should have listened to him more and her Father less. Maybe she wouldn’t have spent so much time going thru bored motions as her High Keepers managed the Temple around her, could have kept the Temple as the place of healing and study it had been offered to her as. Maybe she could have done something better enough that he wouldn’t have locked her away in the drowning dark behind the mirrors.

Over, done with, gone. She couldn’t undo what she’d done before Arlathan fell, but she could do better now. She had Justice to let her know if she fell too far, to let her know what causes to throw her weight behind. Healing and helping, with a strong dose of setting things on fire and an undertone of minding her temper and being patient. Only one of those things was at all difficult, as far as she was concerned.


	37. House Altim

Amell wandered outside, and found a very large dragon sprawled in a clearing just outside the hedge. Kieran was sitting on its head with the older elven girl, cheerfully picking the best plums off higher branches. If it weren’t for the placidly helpful dragon serving as a ladder, he would have called this the closest to normal he had ever seen out of his son. Morri was sitting at the foot of the orchard trees with a book, glancing up every few moments to check on the seven year olds and the baskets of fruit floating slowly down to the pile next to her.  The smaller elven girl was comfortably ensconced in the shade of a vast wing, absorbed in some game that involved taking the dress off her doll and inveigling a very unenthused kitten into it.

In a  flare of mage light, something remarkably griffon shaped launched itself off of the roof of his shed, flapping frantically. Mouse followed its short, precarious flight, barking helpfully as the feathered beast landed in a heap of blue and gold blond feathers. It hauled itself up with a show of injured dignity as the mabari licked at its beak and even the dragon carefully tilted her head to look.

“Uncle Anders, griffons are ‘sposed to fly, not crash.” The little blonde still sitting next to his son between ridged horns crossed her arms in obvious disappointment. The griffon ruffled its feathers, rubbing a taloned paw over its dirt and drool caked face before making a doomed attempt to preen bent primaries back into place. He shifted back when he gave up, patting the dog resignedly as it continued to slobber over him.

“I’m working on it, Kally, I really am,” the healer assured the girl, before dusting himself  off and climbing back to his feet. He pulled a small book back out of his coat, flipping through the pages and frowning at the small sketches. 

“You aren’t making the wings long enough. Have you never seen any of the larger eagles? The tail likely needs to have more at the end to serve as a rudder as well.” Morrigan remarked, not looking up from her book. “You can’t rely on the same wing to mass ratio dragons have.”

“Because dragons are capable of flight only because the laws of physics are too afraid to tell them to stop, I know.”  The dragon huffed over her shoulder at him, and he grinned back before trying it again. When his vision refocused, he pounced on the fluffy tail tip being twitched in front of his face, only to trip over his lengthened wingtips. 

  
  
  


 The tall Tevinter in ornate robes paced across the dirt floor, occasionally returning to his seat in the corner and drumming his fingers over the rough wood table.  It was during one of those moments that the white haired elf in an oversized, patched coat dropped into the chair across from his. He drew himself up abruptly, reaching for his staff only to find the metal heating unpleasantly under his fingers. “Well, that answers the question of if it was really you,” he grumbled, dropping the staff back under the table and surveying the elf more closely. “What in the name of Razikale’s egg did you do to your hair, Halisa?”

“Side effect of this  _ kaffas _ ,” she remarked, extending a hand to better display the fernlike veins of lyrium curling from her fingers up her wrist. Catching his arm as he reached for her, she brushed the pads of her fingers over the fresh burns on his palm, letting the angry red fade back into his skin. “I was told Caius would be here, Gussie,” she remarked, leaning back in her chair.

“You always have been good at that,” he sighed, smiling at his unmarked skin before mirroring her position. “The hair is a shock, but it’s striking. Goes well with the lyrium, very stormlike. But really, that coat. That coat is just so… What sewer did you find that in? We clearly need to get you home to a proper tailor as soon as possible. Those slit skirts you like are coming back into fashion..”

“Nevermind my fucking clothes. Where is my son, Augustus?” She leaned forwards, tendrils of smoke curling up from underneath her hand. 

He splayed his hands out in a dismissively helpless gesture, giving her a bland smile that faltered swiftly under her glare. Edging his chair back from the table, he started digging into his satchel. “Well, I… You must understand, given the situation… It certainly wasn’t my idea, but… I mean, would you really want him to see you in such…”  She hissed under her breath, and he fell silent, swallowing hard as he searched for words.

“The family ‘Gran Dames’ intervened. For some reason, the idea that Caius might vanish into the aether with you rather than both of you returning home occurred to them, and neither Mother nor Aunt Zofia liked the idea of losing both the Altim  _ somniari _ .” Another Tevinter, in far less showy attire, set a tray of glasses and a wine bottle on the table between them. “I’d worry less about him running off and more about Cagageus using the opportunity to eliminate both issues between him and the inheritance, personally.” 

“I hardly think he would stoop to such an act,” Augustus protested, dropping the papers he’d dug out of the satchel on the edge of the table before reaching to pour himself a glass of wine. “What he might have done to Halisa is one thing, but killing his own son? I refuse to believe anyone in this family is capable of…”

“Gussie, go find out what this place has to offer that's close to edible. We’re likely to need something to soak up the alcohol, such as it is,” the muddy blond Tevinter snapped peremptorily. As soon as the grumbling Augustus was out of the back room they had usurped, the second mage dropped into his chair, grinning disbelievingly at the elf. “Despite the hair and the unorthodox tattoos, you look good, Fox ears. Set anything on fire recently?”

“I have, as it happen, Jules. Have you actually managed to sell any art?” she retorted, grinning right back.

“Ouch, yes, yes I have. I’ve sold more pieces than Fussy Gussie has poetry, at least,” he laughed as the other Tevinter slunk back into the room with a plate of something resembling pie. Augustus grumbled at that, opening his mouth to protest. “I’m not counting the book we do not speak of as poetry no matter how many copies it sold, Gus,” Julian headed him off with a flicked gesture, and the darker haired mage reddened, stalking off to find a third chair.

“Do I even want…” Fox examined their expressions for a moment, sighing. “Yeah, I really don’t want to know. How are your muses, Julian?”

“Ah, well. Lucian went into politics and got married, Larkspur caught something visiting family in the Alienage and didn’t pull through, Lapis got caught up in some unrest and vanished.” He shrugged flippantly, leaning back and staring at the ceiling for a moment. “It is what it is, really.  Managed to find a pretty little Antivan alley cat in a ditch a few years back. She hasn’t left yet.” He waved off her half offered sympathies, pouring the wine with a reluctant sniff. “Caius was… he wanted to come. But he’s in the middle of a project with the greenhouses and studying for the Grand Examinations two years early, and allowed himself to be convinced that it was better for him to finish that and see you when you came home. After a fair amount of guilt laden discussions with his Great Aunts, a great deal of angst ridden sullen debates, and at least one attempt to apply to his godfather to get around them.

“I’m sure Rads was ever so helpful in going against both Aunt Zofia and Aunt Zolia,” she snorted, clearly mollified by the explanation. “It’s certain that I can go home then?”

“He decided the best compromise was sending the two of us, and very much so.” Julian shuffled through the papers at the top of the satchel Gussie had been digging through. “You are strongly encouraged to return to being an asset to our family, and Tevinter in general. Let’s see… Here’s a nice pardon for anything you might have done short of treason against the Archon, just waiting for your signature.  And my mother threw in yet another attempt at a marriage contract for us.” He tossed the first across the table, holding the second out expectantly with the tips of his fingers, smirking as it caught on fire. “My continued thanks for your standard response. I missed you desperately, and you have my eternal love as my favorite cousin, but really…” he shuddered delicately, dropping the ashy remains to the table.

“ As it happens, I have someone I have every intention of bringing home, Jules. If Aunt Zolia really wants to plan a wedding that bad…” She shook her head at his speculative hum and set to reading the pardon. “This does seem in order, although how you managed to get the new Archon to sign off…   _ Vishante Kaffas _ . He actually did it. Radonis actually made Archon?” 

Julian grinned brightly at her as she stared at the signature. “As I said, you’re strongly encouraged to come home and be an asset to Tevinter again. Beyond the fact he wouldn’t have passed Advanced Creation without you, you were the youngest full Enchanter in centuries. You set half the records for the Circle and the rules of magic bend to your whims on a regular basis.” 

“Half of our damn study group wouldn’t have passed that class without her, as embarrassing as it is to take extra lessons from an elf girl years your junior.” Augustus muttered, catching himself as Fox leveled a cool gaze in his direction. “Please don’t set me on fire, I like these robes.”

“That’s the fun of Carastes Circle, the shining beacon for political dreams, academic ambitions, and the parents who cling so tightly to them.” Julian raised his glass in a mocking toast. “To those who made it, and those who scraped by with the knowledge they had an inheritance waiting anyway. And those who realized they could just take art history instead.” Both the other mages rolled their eyes at that, one more kindly than the other. “Really, despite the fact you were introduced as our baby foster cousin, most of the old crowd liked you. Enough none of the serious students tried to kill you for routinely testing out of classes the rest of us spent months sitting through to pass. Radonis was one of the ones suggesting we push Gage off the top of the west tower after… well, at least Caius ended up more like you.”

“I’ll drink to that.  Cagageus and I are going to have a long talk about a number of things when I see him.” Fox remarked grimly, taking the offered wine. When the Tevinters just looked at each other and slumped a little back into their chairs, she set her glass back down, letting her fingers drum over the edge of the table. “Something else you need to tell me?”

“Well, really, Gage has been exiled from the estate for years, so it’s not like you’ll have to socialize with him. You probably won’t even see him. And given that most of the our crowd still holds all kinds of grudges against him, he’s been reduced to scrounging off what few friends he still has. Not many, what with Danarius’s disappearance.”  Gussie started, his voice wavering as he watched her expression harden. “His only son won’t even acknowledge his existence, Uncle Gaius rewrote his will so everything went to Caius and then you before it would go back to him…. Hasn’t he been punished enough?” He nervously clutched the leather satchel like a shield between himself and the elven mage.  Julian levered the legs of the chair out from under him with a flick of his staff, and the younger mage yelped as his rump hit the dirt floor. 

“More to the point, fox ears… In practical terms, what Gage and his Magister friend did, selling a Laetan as a slave under forged paperwork? That’s the sort of thing that makes the general populace of free mages worry. You were a full Enchanter, a Magister’s favorite apprentice. If it could happen to you, it might happen to any of them.” Julian filled his glass again, green eyes fixed on the healer across from him. “As it has been explained to me, if we had found what happened to you right away, or even when Radonis took office, dropping the full weight of the law on their heads would reassure everyone. It would set the example that this would not be tolerated. Now? After eleven years, when you were only found because you escaped yourself, after…” He shrugged unhappily, sipping at the wine in front of his and dropping his gaze away from the healer rubbing at her temples with increasing resignation. “The fact Radonis could let something like that happen to someone he liked enough to stand godfather to their child makes him look incompetent at best.”

“And that no one else caught it either would set Laetans against the Magisterium,” Fox sighed, reaching for her glass again. “Politics.  _ Fasta vass _ .” She took a deep breath, glaring at the liquid in front of her. “Fine, other than Gage getting away with this, what’s the plan? I assume you have a story to replace our clearly inconvenient reality.”  

“Maybe you were on sabbatical? Or we could say you were stolen by crazy feral Dalish…” Gussie mused as he righted his chair and dusted off the back of his robes. The hem of his sleeves started smoldering, and he shrieked, layering them in ice. “Do you have any idea how much these robes cost? Don’t do that!” Neither of the other mages reacted with more than an amused glance in his direction, and he huffed before dropping back into his chair. “Fine, if you have a better idea…”

“Gage dropped me off somewhere between here and Ferelden and left me to deal with southern Templars? Far less political issues, still his fault,” Fox mused, still ignoring the disgruntled mutters from Gussie’s side of the table. “Considerably less legal penalties to set on him, however.”

“Doesn’t really matter what story is told, as long as it’s believable enough and we stick to it. As a consolation for going along with this, Radonis told me to offer you a research library at his expense, funding for any projects. You can go bury yourself in healing research the way you always planned.”  Julian started to dig more paperwork out of the stack. 

“That was what I used to want, wasn’t it?” She ruefully laughed. “I’ll take the deal, but not for research projects. I want to set up a free clinic, preferably as near the Alienage as possible, funding to keep it running for a while. And I need assurance of both political asylum for the southern mage coming home with me and that my younger children will share my  _ laetan _ status despite being born outside the Imperium,” she announced, waving off the offered papers as both the other mages stared at her.

“Fox ears, you do know running a clinic involves dealing with other people, right? Usually sick people. Sick, injured, miserable…” the dark blond listed slowly. “I adore you, but dealing with the general public was never your best talent. What happened to our snobby academic dreaming of ivory towers, disdainful of actual jobs or politics?”

“She finally grew up, I think. Jules, I understand the skepticism, but I’ve spent the last several years in a clinic with a budget that wouldn’t keep Gussie in bootlaces.” Fox straightened the buckles on her coat as Jules scrutinized her thoughtfully, clearly debating her wardrobe and worn hair tie in a new light. “I could do better with just the revenue from renting out the townhouse, but any funding I can get out of our new fancy Archon...”

“If a clinic is what you really want, I’m sure it can be arranged.” Julian leaned forward, smirking. “So, tell me about these new kids of yours, and this mage you’re apparently very serious about. He’d get most of the rights of a citizen just for marrying you. Political asylum seems a drastic step.”

“Given the situation… have you heard anything about what went down in Kirkwall a few months ago?” she asked, and Julian’s eyes widened. “That was mostly us. More visibly him, and… I would prefer to have assurance before any outside political pressure is brought to bear.” She smiled brightly at them. “The girls are seven and five, and just the sweetest… Mage gifted, of course, if not quite in my or Caius’s league.”

“I suppose it was too much to hope that the dreamer gift would breed true in all of your children,” Gussie remarked, still fidgeting with the singed edges of his sleeves. “Still, having all your children mages is better than…” He noticed the look both his cousins were giving him and grabbed the papers defensively. “What?”

“I realize he’s just echoing Aunt Zofia, and she talks like that about everyone, but… Being discussed like broodstock? Not something I missed over the last few years.” Fox noted, shaking her head. 

“Welcome back to the family, Halisa,” Julian replied with another mocking toast. “Where our elders just want what’s best for us, and clearly what’s best for us is to make more little mages for them to marry off.”


	38. Julian

Despite his reputation of a careless dilliente playing at art, Julian Altim prided himself on not being an idiot. His rooms in town might not be in the ideal neighborhood, but they did have the perfect light for his work. And he could easily afford them with what he did sell, even if his mother finally went through with her usual threat of cutting him off. Not that he seriously thought she would.

No more than Uncle Gaius had ever cut either of his sisters out of their allowances or their place in his estate. There was something to be said about growing up with an assortment of cousins to run around with in that warren of a manor. Cousins and second cousins and whatevers how many times removed, with a family tree that crossed back into itself far too many times for his comfort. Then they had started lessons, and the unspoken line between the Altim children born with mage gift and those without became a gulf wide as the abyss. The magicless were given training in martial weapons, practical pursuits, their expectations heavily managed, as he and his fellow mages were sheltered in the midst of the vast library, told to chase their dreams. 

But even there, there were still lines, graduations of privilege. Julian might not be as gifted as his elder brother, but magic still came far easier to him than Augustus, only a year his junior. And Gage, despite his place as the son of the house, struggled with spells the younger children mastered, audibly despaired of his chances of managing the entrance exams for Carastes.  He had scraped by, in the end, but everyone knew it was a near thing, and Uncle Gaius’s high expectations for his sole child had only increased.

Right until Halisa had set half the dining hall on fire when someone startled her. Uncle Gaius had brought the tiny elf home barely a month before, telling anyone willing to listen how he had found her “in front of an ancient mirror, within the ruins of Razikale’s shrine at the edges of the forest of Arlathan, like a gift from the Old Gods themselves.”  Mother had told them Uncle had probably stolen the girl from a Dalish clan, “but at least she’s young enough to not stay entirely feral.” The little ginger skittering around at his uncle’s heels had seemed less afraid than he would have expected for someone stolen from their family, too at ease amidst the fineries for a wild Dalish. On the other hand, you’d think a gift from the gods would speak something other than the melodic elvhen she seemed increasingly frustrated they didn’t understand.

The day after the fire, she had been seated at the table with the younger mage children instead of eating in Uncle Gaius’s rooms. By the day after that, she was in the classroom with them, with a tutor slowly trying to explain a basic focus exercise to her. The third time through the explanation with her still staring in confusion, Julian had wandered over to demonstrate.  Halisa watched him, her ears perked up, and she had copied him flawlessly. He had felt a little resentful at that, considering it had taken him a week to master that and she was easily four years younger than he was. But she was cute about it, for a little kid, and the tutors were increasingly grateful for his help. 

With someone to demonstrate the concepts they were asking for, the tutor’s assessment of her talent shifted abruptly upwards, and even farther as she began picking up the language. The adults’ manner of speaking about the little elf shifted as well, going from referring to her like an especially clever pet to muttering about “Somniari” and wardships. 

They had finally stopped scolding him for his constant doodling in the margins of everything when it turned into Halisa asking for the name of whatever he was drawing in trade or tevene. He’d even been bought new sketchbooks. She had, in return, attempted to teach him some of her language, even if he had only gotten as far as the first part of her name before dubbing her ‘Fox ears.’  He vaguely remembered Gussie shuffling around the edges of their lessons, grumbling about the way she had skipped the level he was at entirely, although the younger mage’s resentment had been abruptly replaced with nerves and apprehension a few years later. Gage had taken to the freedom his father’s distraction had granted him differently, skipping lessons frequently in favor of vanishing to the edges of the estates and doing things that made the adults watch him with mild concern.

In retrospect, a great deal of trouble might have been avoided if the adults had nipped Gage’s new hobbies in the bud, rather than dismiss it as youthful high spirits. Just because it only involved elves that belonged to the estate and could be easily dealt with didn’t make the entire idea less disgusting. Maybe if that hadn’t been tolerated, it wouldn’t have occurred to him to take the fact his father had started throwing Halisa’s accomplishments into his face out on her, at least not in the way he did. Pity the teachers at the circle had stopped the study group throwing him off the tower when it had been found out. More a pity that the only punishment his ass of a cousin had gotten from the incident had been expulsion and a reduction of his allowance. 

Naturally, that had been the catalyst for his mother to start writing up marriage contracts. “To save her from disgrace,” was the first reason he was given. Easily defeated by Uncle Gaius’s acknowledgement of Caius as his grandson, and the way the Carastes crowd closed ranks to shelter their youngest member.  “For the good of the family”, “think of the children you could have if her talent keeps breeding true”, and “because you haven’t found anyone else to marry you,” soon followed. Her insistence on the last was mildly hurtful, if honest. It wasn’t like he was actually looking, after all. He had a studio full of people to paint, a delightful percentage of which were both interesting enough to bother with and willing to climb into his bed. Marriage seemed excessive, marriage to someone who was practically family already more so.  His brother Octavian was both cheerfully doing his duty to the family and the one in line to inherit what little property their father’s cadet branch was due. He had his art, helped along by the number of friends from Carastes who had advanced themselves and kept inviting him to parties.

 And he apparently had his favorite cousin and her family to escort back home, since the necessary paperwork had been sent along. If he could keep Gussie from saying any of the stupidity clearly bubbling behind those pallid blue eyes, at any rate. The idiot had realized the girls were elven, and Julian could almost hear what he was thinking, even more so when it was obvious the mage Halisa was fawning over was very much not. 

The coloring might be similar, but he’d lay money they weren’t Halisa’s by birth either. There were subtle differences in face shape, the tilt of the eyes and jaw. It was possible they just strongly resembled an unknown elven father. Except for the part where Halisa had told Caius she only ended up in Kirkwall five years ago when she first wrote them. If the lanky blond healer and Julian’s favorite cousin were willing to claim those two admittedly cute kids as theirs, more power to both of them. It would get the little mages into a decent circle for training when they were old enough, give them the chances as free mages that they wouldn’t have otherwise. 

He doubted Gussie had figured it out that far yet, considering the dusty brown haired clothes horse was still looking at the girls’ ears with something far too close to a sneer. That should probably be headed off before… “Lovely. We’re going to this much trouble to bring home a badly dressed insurrectionist and a pair of knife eared…” Too late.

“Gussie, Gussie.” Halisa was looking at the resident master of conversational missteps with the sort of expression that suggested setting things on fire would be insufficient. “I’m going to assume the last fourteen years without me and your clear joy at seeing me again has led you to forget some basic rules.”

“I’d never say that about you. You’re a Somniari, you’re different, ” Gussie huffed, rubbing at the fire resist runes stitched into the sleeves of today's outfit. Their foster cousin eyed the gesture with dry amusement laced over her irritation. “If they carried your gift, it would be different, Halisa. But the last thing this family needs is more…”

“Gussie, do you still keep rabbits? Or, no, you married when your mother snapped her fingers, and you have children now, don’t you?” She smiled sweetly at the elementalist suddenly paling as he watched her drum almost clawed nails against the doorframe. He stared at the too sharp teeth in that smile, pallor supplanted by verdigris as he fled. “That should really not have been that entertaining,” she muttered when he was out of earshot. “Jules, I have to go settle a few things. Try to stay out of trouble.”

Augustus was leaning against the outside wall when Julian found him. “For someone who claims to fear our resident dreamer, you spend a great deal of time saying things that aggravate her.” 

“You say shit about her ears constantly. Why am I the only one being set on fire for a slip of the tongue?” Gussie protested, maintaining just enough awareness to check his surroundings.

“Her name literally means fox, more or less. From me, it’s a cute nickname I saddled her with when we were children.  The trick is knowing how far you can take something before the offended party is more offended than amused, Fussy Gussie,” the artist noted blandly. “People set you on fire when you cross that line.”

“She was much easier to manage before. If you had just married her like Aunt Zofia wanted, Gage wouldn’t have been able to… You could have both been productive members of the family and her children would at least be elfblooded instead of entirely knife-eared!” the would be poet snapped. With a tight smile, Julian slapped him.

 “She was easier to manage because she was barely nineteen when she vanished, Gus. Which was one of the reasons I spent five years avoiding an arranged marriage with my own baby cousin. Normal people don’t marry family that grew up in the same house,” he hissed under his breath. “You damn well deserve whatever that cryptic threat of hers was about.”

“It isn’t like the two of you are blood relat…” Augustus bit off the comment, rubbing his reddened cheek as Julian coolly raised his hand again. “She’s the one that killed my rabbits when we were children. She turned into some kind of dragonling and ate one in front of me, and no one ever believed me!”

“Well, that would explain why they were all slaughtered the afternoon after you threw everything she owned into the fishpond, laughed at her trying to rescue her books, and correct me if I’m wrong… Joined Gage in mourning the unavailability of a sack to catch her fox form in so you could throw her in as well.”  Julian remarked, buffing his nails as he shook his head. “And the relevant adults were just as useless when she went to them about that. Boys will be boys, and all that.”

“I was nine! I didn’t entirely understand the ramifications of his suggestion, I just went along with it,” Gussie insisted, if with a trifle less confidence. “And then the next day the hutch was shredded open, blood everywhere, and she ripped PuffPuff apart, right in front of me. People aren’t even supposed to be able to turn into that sort of thing. Just think of what she could be capable of now, Julian!” 

 "I have. I'm doubting whether you have,” the artist sighed, frowning. “Gussie, Gussie, Gussie. You were nine, Foxears was seven. If she could do that then, think, really think, what she could do to you now if you keep pissing her off? Saying that sort of thing about her children…” He stepped back, barely keeping his worn boots out of the other mage’s spray of vomit. “I’ll let you ponder those implications for a while, consider how badly you need to apologize before she comes home with us.”

 

“I’d ask if he needs help, but I’m not sure it would do any good,” the lanky healer remarked, frowning around the corner at the mouthier of the two Tevinters.

“He needed a few facts laid out for him better, that’s all,” Julian brushed it off, circling the black coated strawberry blond. “I’d apologize for him, but then I’d be here for the rest of the Age, and you’re likely to hear worse on the way home.” He squinted, scrutinizing Anders carefully. “You weren’t exactly what we were expecting her to drag home.”

“If I had a sovereign for everyone who told me that…” he grumbled under his breath. “I’m aware, although the pair of you are hardly what I expected of Tevinter nobles either.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, under the circumstances.” Julian carefully schooled his face into the most foreboding expression he could manage. “You’re getting political asylum, access to her share of the Altim wealth, and an opportunity at the ear of the Archon himself. How do I know you aren’t just using Halisa to get what you want?”

Anders smiled at that. “I’m not a smoldering pile of ashes? I wouldn’t let her know you’re questioning her ability to look after herself.”

“Good answer, you pass. Pity, I had this splendid speech about shovels I was hoping to find an excuse for.” Julian extended a hand to the healer. “Julian Altim, rumored rakehell, frequent disgrace to my family, artist of some note, and Halisa’s favorite cousin.”

“From what I’ve heard, you have another cousin who could use an introduction to that shovel, if you wouldn’t mind me borrowing it,” he commented, taking the hand. “Frederick Akselsen is the name on the fancy paperwork, but I’ve been going by that Anders boy so long I doubt I’d respond to anything else.”

“Anders, then. As deeply satisfying as dumping Gage into a shallow grave would be, murder gets very messy when it involves even a disgraced Altus like him. We’d need alibis, a good clean up plan… Stop by my place when you two get settled in, I’ll ask my Antivan to lay us out a plan. She’d know how to do it.” Julian shrugged, opening the door back into the inn. “Or I suppose we could wait for him to get caught in one of his other vices, at which point Radonis has promised he’ll be sentenced as harshly as possible.”

Anders hesitated at the threshold, frowning, the odd blue rings around the edges of his dark brown eyes almost glowing. “You have a… That… That will take getting used to.”

“What? Ah, yes, that. I suppose that will be a shock, given southern norms. If it makes you feel better, my family has a policy of staffing the houses with indentured servants, rather than outright slaves. One of my ancestors was both mildly progressive and paranoid about his food, and at least one of those traits carried on.” Julian explained with a wince. “And my Antivan… she’s about as much mine as your average stray cat. I found her left for dead in a ditch. She’s been hanging around to eat my food and play muse to my art since, as free as a lost Magpie could be.” Anders raised an eyebrow at that, and Julian shrugged expansively. “Magpie, rook, raven. She’s a glossy feathered, clever Antivan bird, and any attempt I made to keep her against her will would likely end with a dagger in my throat.”

“Ah. My Commander has a friend like that. He’s taken up with one… with a Dalish friend of Fox’s. They might stop by long enough to say their goodbyes,” the healer shrugged, sparing a glance around the corner of the building for the other mage. Augustus was still huddled against the wall, not looking up. “Are you sure he’ll be alright?”

“I think he’s considering the error of his ways, but he’s always had a problem thinking before he runs his mouth. It got worse without Halisa around to set him on fire for the worst of it,” Julian shook his head, smirking. “So, how did you convince our socially averse academic to actually work in a clinic with people?”

Anders shrugged, still fidgeting with his staff. “I’m charming and she needed something to do, to begin with. Once she settled in, she’d found she was good at it and enjoyed it after all.”

“Are we still talking about healing? This sounds like a number of conversations I had in my youth,” Julian snorted, watching the other blond blink at him before reddening. “I usually started with ‘I’d love to paint you, want to go see my studio?’, but that’s me.”

“What did you say to the people you didn’t want to paint?” Anders asked, recovering his dignity.

 Julian grinned, stretching ostentatiously. “As a general rule, if they weren’t interesting enough to paint, they certainly weren’t interesting enough to…” 

“Papa Anders! Look what Uncle Mikel got me!” Kally shrieked, scrambling around the corner excitedly. Bumbling along at her heels was a blocky headed, greyish puppy, barely old enough to be weaned and already easily to her knees. “Isn’t she pretty? I’m gonna teach her to chase sticks and eat templars and we’re gonna do everything together!”

“It’s a Mabari. What an awesome present that a warning would have been really nice about…”Anders remarked, trying to hold a supportive smile. “Does your mother know about this yet?”

“Yeah, we ran into her on the way in, and Uncle Mikel told her we’d already imprinted, and she said I should go tell you and she’d be in as soon as she finished thanking him.”  She knelt down next to the puppy, struggling to pick it up as it licked her face enthusiastically. “She’s one of Mouse’s puppies! I’m gonna call her Cloud. Or maybe Bunny.” The puppy bounced around her happily, licking any available skin until she giggled. “Bouncy Bunny!”

“Who gives a warhound to a seven year old?” Julian asked, incredulously, wrinkling his nose as the dog investigated his ankles.  

“I’m almost eight,” the tiny pale blonde muttered mulishly, glaring up at the new adult as he restrained the reflexive snort.  He arched an eyebrow instead, laughing outright as she raised a lightning sparked fist. He extended his own hand, letting lightning fade into ice into the flicker of a spirit wisp, and the child’s stubborn glare faded into awe. “I wanna know how to do that!”

“I’m sure your mother will send you to school to learn how to do just that as soon as you’re old enough,” Julian assured her with a dismissive shrug, looking back at Anders. “Let me rephrase. Who gives an almost eight year old a warhound that will outweigh her within a year?”

“My commanding officer, apparently,” the healer muttered. “How much complication is this likely to create in the current plans?” 

“If she was a normal  _ laetan _ child or you lot actually had to support yourselves and keep that thing fed? A fair amount,” Julian shrugged again. “But Halisa has enough settled on her your family won’t have to work for at least your lifespans, and with the influence of the Altim family your children will be excused a certain level of eccentricity.” 

“Good to know. Someone should probably go rescue my commander. Would you rather talk Fox down or watch these two?” Anders asked, as they both glanced at the girl and puppy trying for angelic expressions. “I’m sure they wouldn’t be too much trouble for a few minutes.”

Julian looked at Kally and the puppy with a skeptical expression. “No trouble at all, I’m sure. Despite the saying about demons you know, I’ll let you face the fire. It is your Commander after all. And soon to be your wife, if I’ve heard right.”

“If all goes well,” Anders hedged, smiling softly. “Did I hear part of your argument with your overdressed cousin right, that you were supposed to marry Fox?”

“Only in my mother’s carefully laid plans. I’m well married to my art and Halisa already had a pile of offers she was turning down for lack of sufficiently stocked libraries and research space.” The artist rubbed the back of his neck, tilting his head to watch a tendril of smoke rising over the inn roof. “She must be terribly fond of you, to give up her chances of either.”

 


	39. Grey Wardens

“You told her she could have a dog for her birthday!” Mikel was insisting from behind a shimmering barrier spell. The shield was outlined by a ring of bare, scorched earth, and another small orb of pale fire splattered against it as Fox glowered at the Warden.

“You know perfectly well I meant we would get her a lapdog, Amell. Her birthday is still a month away, and I most certainly did not agree to a mabari!” The short mage bounced another fireball on her palm before lobbing it at the battlemage. It splashed as harmlessly as the last, sparking and smoldering over the dirt. “You also knew once they were imprinted it was far too late for Anders or I to say no!”

“Really too late now, she named it Bunny.” Anders said after a moment of watching the scene. Fox turned towards him,sighed, and tossed another ball of flame over her shoulder at Amell, this one distinctly brighter. It smashed through the barrier effortlessly, fizzling out inches from the Warden’s face. “That was probably unnecessary, love.”

“Yet so satisfying,” she retorted. “Just you wait, I’ll find something ridiculous to give Kieran for his birthday. Like a dracolisk. Or a tiger, or pheonix or something. Except I actually like his mother, and I know exactly the look she would give me." Anders kept looking at her, and she sighed. “I’m sorry for making you fear for your life, Amell,” she grumbled with less sincerity than apologies usually called for.

“You could have gotten that through the damn shield any fucking… I’ll keep that in mind, next time I have puppies to distribute. Be well out of range unless Morri is around,” Amell remarked, and both the healers looked at him sourly. “I expect invitations when you get to Minrathous, Anders. I’ve wanted to see that place as long as you have.”

“To be honest, my enthusiasm is dwindling right now,“ the tall blond sighed, tangling his fingers in strands of Fox’s long hair. “Something your cousin said reminded me of… There are things in his homeland Justice is not, I am not going to deal well with.” She flinched at that, rubbing the back of her neck ruefully. “I know it will be safer for the girls to grow up somewhere their magic isn’t a curse, where their choices are more than hunted apostate or broken prisoner, but… I don’t know how long I could handle idle luxury when injustice runs rampant around us, love.”

“I have every intention of using what little sway I have left with Radonis and the rest of the Carastes crowd to do what I can, my heart. It is my people most affected, more or less. But even with the seat Caius can claim in a few years, politics…There is a reason Archons who get the bright idea to unilaterally outlaw slavery get assasinated in a hurry. More to the point, disrupt the economy too fast, the alienage and the rest of the liberati will be the first to starve,” she sighed, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I have the beginnings of a plan, I just… It will take time. Probably more time than you spent trying to start change here, but it’s not like time is something we’re short on.”

“Fox, I… I’m still a Warden, as much as I try to forget that. Time may be less abundant for me than you think,” he told her, his hand in her hair brushing along her spine. Amell coughed, at that, stopping mid step.

“You hadn’t told her yet?” he asked, incredulously. “Anders, as much as I’d like to think I’m making progress with Avernus’s notes, I’m still not certain I can make that much of a difference to our lifespan yet. Maybe, if I had access to all those pretty libraries in a city I’ve yet to receive an invitation to…” 

Fox twitched a finger in the Warden Commander’s direction, and his mouth shut mid sentence. “Explain. Please,” she snapped, some of her teeth seeming to sharpen as she spoke, the air around her thickening. 

“It’s the secret of becoming a Warden, the part they don’t tell you about until the last moment. The original wardens needed a way to sense the Darkspawn, to make it possible to bring down Archdemons, so they figured out a way to…They mixed the blood of an Archdemon and darkspawn with lyrium, and we... it’s delayed…” Anders explained falteringly, wincing at the way Fox recoiled as his words sank in, the sharp, heated feel of the air between them. He pulled his hands back, shoved them into his pockets as he tried to ignore the look on her face. “Warden’s usually get between fifteen to thirty years before it… they refer to it as the Calling. One last trip into the deep roads to take out as many darkspawn as possible, get them to kill you before… before you become one of them.”

“That’s a little harsh,” Amell protested quietly, raking a hand through his hair in agitation. “The taint will kill us, and neither of us really signed up for that, but…”

“Mikel… I saw what the dwarf following the architect looked like, and met another lost Warden below Vinmark keep. There isn’t that much difference..” Anders countered, voice soft and broken. Beside him, there was a spike of heat and a soft popping noise before the pressure around them faded, and he knew before he looked that Fox had vanished. “Andraste’s tits.”

“That was probably a conversation you should have had before you had kids,” Mikel commented, popping his shoulders. “Good luck with that. Out of curiosity, what were you doing there?”

“Helping your cousins kill a talking darkspawn who claimed to be the high priest of Dumat, which went about as charmingly as you might expect. As my commanding officer, should you really be lecturing me for keeping Grey Warden secrets?” The healer retorted halfheartedly, rubbing his eyes as an unearthly vulpine scream echoed out of the nearby woods. “I was going to tell her, I just… things kept coming up.”

“Well, I wouldn’t tell Weisshaupt about it, but it’s kind of difficult keeping a marriage going with that level of secret… Go back, what was that about talking darkspawn and Dumat?” Amell asked, suddenly paying far more attention.

“Architect level ugly, but worse. Nearly killed all of us. Kept muttering about how it was ‘supposed to be golden, it was supposed to be ours…’ He was trapped in a Warden built prison, but he was messing with their heads. Commanding them like the Archdemons are supposed to command darkspawn. ” Anders shook his head, still staring out into the trees as a small white fox slunk back through the underbrush towards them. “Justice was the only thing that kept me from turning on them, and it was still a close thing. Carver hadn’t been a Warden that long, but I could tell he felt it too.” Fox brushed against his feet, weaving between them like a cat before she shifted back, wearing an expression Anders hadn’t seen since shortly after his close call with Ser Karras.

“I love you, Anders,” she whispered, cradling his face in trembling fingers, tugging his head down to press her lips to his forehead. She checked their immediate surroundings for listeners, then held her hands out in front of her and spun thin threads of flame out of the air. They looped around her fingers in intricate, deliberate patterns, and the sounds from the Inn and the nearby woods deadened like they were wrapped in wool. “I wish you had told me earlier, but…” She swore under her breath, fingers still weaving the magic around them. “Life would be far easier if Mother had just killed Andruil when she started meddling with the Void and spreading the corruption, it really would.”  Her fingers flicked another set of knots into the pattern, and a translucent bubble swirled around them, chiming softly as Amell tapped it.

“So this whole blight thing is actually the elves’ fault, not …” Amell looked up from his examination of the shimmering surface of the bubble to find both the other mages glaring at him. “Look, they’ve been using ‘Magisters created the darkspawn’ as an excuse for so long…”

“My sister might have brought it back from the void, but we dealt with it. We purified her lands, Mother stripped Andruil of even the memory of the Void, and we locked away every trace of the corruption,” Fox hissed. “Locked away beyond mortal reach, or so we thought at the time. And in our defense, it held for millennia after our fall.” Cushions sprung up into place under her as she reclined without letting go of the spell weaving. 

“Would the place that was locked away be large and imposing and constantly in the middle of the Fade? Used to be bright and shiny, now just very large and black?” Anders asked, and she gritted her teeth before nodding in confirmation. He smiled apologetically back, ,seating himself at her feet where he could lean back into her.  The ground under him padded itself as she brushed the back of her hand against his cheek without tangling the pattern. “The elves locked it away, the Magisters unleashed it. Shared blame at best, Commander.”

“I’ll accept shared blame. The Void shouldn’t have been meddled with to begin with,” Fox sighed heavily. “Like any number of the temptations my family delved into. We were good at chasing possibilities, not so good at thinking through the consequences of those possibilities.” Anders made a small noise in his throat, and she rolled her eyes. “Yes,Justice, like unsupervised spoiled children. Just because I’ve come to agree with that lecture doesn’t mean I want to hear it again right now.”  Despite the exasperated tone, she smiled ruefully down at her luminously blue eyed lover, who smirked back up with something perilously close to smug pride before leaning his head back against her knee.

“Well, that’s still adorable,” Mikel remarked, dropping back onto the cushion erupting under him. “But why would your ...why would anyone want to go romping around the Void in the first place?”

“It was there, it might have had things she hadn’t killed yet?” Fox offered with a shrug. “I’ve never really spent much effort trying to decipher Andruil’s motives beyond if it moves, shoot it with arrows. But… Void essence is a powerful amplifier as well as a corrupting influence. It increases strength, stamina, magical ability... all while it poisons you from the inside out.” She stared at the increasingly complicated tangle of light between her hands for a moment, deep in thought. “Dragons are resistant, if not immune. If your warden ritual uses that aspect with the lyrium to stabilize… It would delay the mental disruption, the internal corruption, while allowing the amplification to boost what ability you already had. But spirits were one of the few things immune to the effects, to the point that voluntary spirit possession was one of the few reliable protections against it.”

“We came through the veil by accident, into a fallen Warden host. Kristoff was already far enough along to fear the approach of his Calling. It affected us, somewhat, and when we then joined Anders, also already a Warden…” Anders rumbled, eyes still solidly blue. “We… I am no longer certain whether the corruption would leave me, even if I were to somehow be returned entirely to the Fade.”

“If your kindred dealt with this before, then you know how to fix it. How to cure us, purify…” Mikel excitedly began. The pained look on her face sank in, and he trailed off.

“The only cure for long term exposure to void essence I’m certain of is dragon fire and salt,” Fox retorted, shaking her head and not meeting either of their eyes. Memories rose, and she flinched, barely keeping the spellweave from unraveling. “I… I helped purify my sister’s lands from the plague she unleashed. By burning it all to bare earth, field, forest and village. Then we salted what was left to keep it barren long enough for whatever remained to dissipate.” She shook her head again, more violently. “I can still hear the screams sometimes. This is not a memory I’m proud of, but we had to keep it from spreading.”  Anders traced a blue fractured hand over the lyrium ferns rising up her bare foot and ankle, and she sighed. “I wasn’t involved in whatever mother did to help my sister, and I doubt she recorded the particulars of that trick. But I will do whatever I can to help. Consider yourself welcome at either the Altim estate or the townhouse in Minrathous, Amell. I’ll ask the Sentinels to forward any books that might help, get them translated for you.” She flicked her fingers loose of the spell weave, and the bubble around them unraveled in an instant.

  
  


From the other side of the Inn, a barking filled cacophony suddenly reached them, and the healers glanced at each other before moving to head off the problems. By the time they had restored order and smoothed the Innkeeper’s ruffled feathers, it was past dinner time.

“Kally, you and Meeka can’t set fire to adults because they said mean things. Or kick shins, even if it is against Cousin Gussy. If he does it again, tell me, Papa Anders, or Cousin Julian.” Fox carefully explained to the young mage, firmly ignoring the grin Julian was trying to hide. “You probably shouldn’t tell Bunny to bite them, either. Now, tomorrow will be a very long day, so all three of you off to bed.”

“That’s it? Your little miscreant attacks me, and all she gets is an early bedtime?” Augustus demanded, holding out a scrap of his ripped, scorched trousers. “Did you see what she did to my clothes? She’s as violent as you were! Clearly that apple did not fall far from the tree…”

“Are you aware of what I am likely to do if I ever hear of you using that kind of language around my children again?” Fox asked far too quietly as Anders took the girls and mabari upstairs. “If you ‘misspeak’ around my family on this trip again, you will not make it back to Tevinter. I don’t care what I have to tell the Archon or your mother.” When she was certain the older mage understood exactly what she had said, she smiled tightly at Julian before rejoining her family.

“The little brats inherited her temper, if not the proper extent of her magic,” Gussy muttered under his breath when he was certain she was out of the room. “More knife ears running around the estate like they belong, an elfblooded bastard preparing to take control of everything... Maybe it would have been better for the family if Gage had found that damn sack after…” He coughed as Julian pinned him against the wall with his staff.. “Ju.. Jules…”

“From where I stand, she and Caius are the best things to happen to our family in centuries. Elfblooded or not, our family seat is passing to a somniari for the first time since the Augur of Mysteries. We have the ear of the Archon himself. Whatever his mother may be, she is capable of far more, in our favor or against, than anything Cagageous could have dreamed. There is a reason our mothers want her back home as badly as Radonis does, Fussy Gussy,” Julian hissed, pressing the staff harder into Gussy’s throat as the younger mage clawed at the metal. “There was a reason Uncle Gaius cosseted her as much as he did, without taking into account her delightful personality.”

“You… You can’t seriously believe his… that superstitious nonsense. An elf… as Razikale’s… Avatar…” Gussy gasped, still fighting for air.

 “Watch her eyes change when you anger her, Gussy. The way her nails turn to claws. Just because he was a drunk doesn’t mean he was entirely wrong. Even Octavian saw it once, and he agrees with me. We will remain loyal to our family’s oaths, whether she reveals herself or not. I will remain faithful,” Julian reiterated, cutting the taller man off with extra pressure to the staff. “Speak against her or hers again, and you won’t need to wait for her to destroy you,” he promised, his grin almost feral. “Keep being an officious little prick, and I might enjoy it. Aside from all that, from the fact that somniari are blessed by the gods to begin with, I like her a damned sight more than I have ever liked you.” He pulled back, leaving Augustus slumped against the wall, gasping for air.

 

“Please don’t feed Bunny from your plate, Kally. She has her own food, and not everything you eat is good for her. Meeka, the same goes for Splotch,” Fox remarked the next morning.

“She’s Capt’n Splotch, Mama Fox!” The younger girl protested, in the midst of feeding the half grown cat her third slice of jam covered bacon. Her adoptive parents shared a look at that, before Anders twitched his fingers, and the treat shivered into ash. “That’s not fair!” she muttered, as the cat mewed in protest.

“Jam isn’t good for cats, Meeka. She has a bowl of fish in her basket. The basket she’s supposed to stay in while we’re traveling, remember?” He commented, and the almost six year old redhead grumbled. “We’re not trying to be mean to her, we just don’t want her to get lost or sick on the trip.” With reluctance in every movement, Meeka scooped her cat off the table, setting her back into the wicker basket at her feet as her sister stuck her tongue out at her and offered another toast point to the puppy under the table.

The toast turned to ash even swifter than the bacon, and the nearly eight year old blonde pouted. “The meat in Bunny’s bowl is much less likely to make her sick than sugared toast, Kally. You were asked nicely not to do that, now stop,” Fox countered. Kally drew herself up, glaring at the silver haired elf, who merely raised an eyebrow and held her gaze until the girl slumped back into her chair.

“Now, now, if you don’t listen to your parents, they might not let you have the surprises I acquired for the trip,” Julian remarked breezily, smirking at the wary looks both the healers shot him as both girls intently focused on him. He dropped into a chair across from them, stealing a slice of bacon off the nearest plate. “Halisa has never been a fan of extended carriage rides, and the lot of you are remarkably light on baggage. So I picked up enough horses to get you back home. Drifter and Kicker were both retired out of the stables a few years ago, but I picked you up something when we went back to get the right papers. Keep them yourselves, have them sent to the Altim stables, either way.” The children looked puzzled, then lit up, turning eager eyes on the adult mages as they perched on the edges of their seats.

“Yes, you can keep what mounts he gave you, as long as you look after them,” Fox sighed. “As long as they are ponies, and not dracolisks,” she amended, giving Julian a look.

“Do you really think I would...Yes, Fox ears, I got them ponies. I came this close to getting you one, but I thought you might want the dignity of a small horse instead.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


“I’ll be there until the girls are grown, probably. The merge with Justice has slowed the corruption, at least enough I’d get closer to thirty years than the fifteen some get,” Anders remarked optimistically, watching the girls squee over the saddled chestnut ponies through the window.  Fox wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her cheek into his hair. “And even a decade with you is better than a lifetime in the Tower.”

“Don’t say that, my heart. I’ll figure this out. There are a number of ways to neutralize void essence, I just need to make them… survivable. Somehow.”  She sighed, the air around them sharpening for a moment before she pulled it back. “For the first time since I started waking, I miss being what I was, that absolute surety that whatever I did was unquestionable, beyond reproach. The idea of acquiring a selection of easier to miss Wardens, testing until I found a workable method is… It’s very tempting right now.” She flicked his ear in a half jesting rebuke. “But no, you had to remind me about such poisonous concepts as ethics, lower life forms having value beyond my amusement…”

The blond healer rolled his eyes, still more blue than not. “Yes, my brilliant plan to turn you into a less of a selfish tyrant is working beautifully. My next step will be getting you to not refer to us as ‘lesser life forms’.”

“I’ll think about it,” she replied breezily. “Are you sure I shouldn’t borrow a few Wardens, let them play sacrifice to the future well being of their fellows? I’m sure I could find a few willing to volunteer…”

“Unless they volunteer of their own free will, no. And don’t mention that suggestion to my Commander either. He’s too fond of the ends justifying the means as it is, without having this much stake in the outcome. He’d find you volunteers, but I wouldn’t trust them having free will anymore.” Anders warned, checking that the other Warden hadn’t somehow snuck back into earshot.  “I’ll pass you my copies of Warden Avernus’s research. Given the number of other Wardens he killed to get as far as he did, it should at least let you rule out a few methods. How’s your old Tevene?”

“Probably far better than either of yours, my heart.” She offered him an easy hand back to his feet, an apologetic smile. “I don’t… You know when I said lesser life forms, I wasn’t including you, right?” He raised an eyebrow, and she huffed. “Never you, Justice. Not Kally, Meeka, Julian, Morrigan or her Warden. Probably not any of the mages we helped, my Sentinels, or some of Merrill’s people.”

“It’s a start, love,” he noted, debating whether to push. “You didn’t list anyone without magic in that. Where do you list Isabela or Varric?”

“Under the category of things I like that make my head hurt.”  She looked back at him, something unreadable in her eyes. “I… I liked them, but they aren’t my people to protect, not the way these new elves or your mages are. They picked their side, and it was not ours, Eanvher.” 


	40. Pounce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been distracted with the beginning of an actual novel. I'll still try to get more written on this. And the next chapter of complications is almost done. Sorry everyone.

Rasanis dropped the attempted invisibility spell and grinned ruefully as Fox cleared her throat. “That is entirely unfair. How did you know where I was?”

“The pretty markings claiming you as one of my minions are not decorative, Ras,” she snorted, not looking up once from the Tethras novel she was reading. “I always know where you are. Your penchant for stalking around the edge of wherever I am after I’ve told you to go away notwithstanding, did you have a reason for being in my inn room?”

“Perhaps I merely found myself desolate without the shining glory of your presence,” they remarked, making a dramatic false swoon towards her feet. “Felt the need to bask in your flaming light, your divine aura of divinity and power.” 

“You have been spending entirely too much time with Ashavise and Dhaveriel.  Did you at least accomplish what I asked before returning to skulking in my shadow?” A cascade of multi colored threads coiled around her fingers, weaving mid air into a thin, iridescent ribbon she absently marked her page with before setting the book down.

“You doubt me? I have always been your most faithful, loyal, obedient…”  Ras laid their hands over their heart, giving the evanuris the most wounded look they could manage.

“You aren’t Doshiel, don’t bother trying. Most competent, yes, certainly loyal enough at heart, but he’s my favorite for a reason. If he had half your power, he’d have your position,” she interrupted in a mildly chiding tone.

“But he doesn’t, so I remain your loyal second, First among your shadows, the smoke to your fire, as always. Regardless of your yearly death threats,” they demurred, silvery eyes almost sparkling with half concealed mischief as they bowed floridly and dropped onto the bed beside her. “And yes, your little almost elven mages are tucked into the protective bosom of the Temple, getting a swift education in all things elven and magical. Some of the Sentinels got a little snippy about the idea, but Doshiel assured them it was all by your orders, and they settled down.” Ras flicked a hand, looking disgruntled. 

“I can’t imagine why they might possibly consider him a more reliable source of information than you,” Anders noted blandly, shutting the door quietly behind himself. “If you check back in with them, we were going to ask you to pick up some books.”

“Blessed Sylaise, I’m going to ignore that your unworthy little mortal consort just implied I was capable of lying about a command of yours,” Rasanis snapped, glaring at the blond from around her side. The shadows in the room thickened, rising behind the human mage. “I might creatively reinterpret them but I have never…”

Fox reached out and swatted their ear, the air around her shimmering as the shadows fled back to their places. “Enough, Rasanis. If you want to make such an issue of my taking a consort, do remember you refused the position when I offered it to you.” Anders snorted, and she smiled warmly over at him, patting the bed on her other side invitingly. He settled himself sideways against the headboard and wall, pulling her into his lap where he could wrap his arms around her shoulders and smirk at her Sentinel.

“I’m not jealous! Just.. eurgh. Sylaise, I adore you beyond reason, I worship you utterly… but..ew.”  Rasanis spluttered, and Fox laughed. “You are entirely too… too female, for my tastes. And horrible.”

“Oh, and here I thought she was offering to share. Silly me,” Anders remarked, still snuggling into the evanuris, wheezing a bit as she elbowed back into his ribs. 

“Play nice, both of you. Ras, did Nydmisa actually agree to toe the line and help with the new elves?” Fox asked, tipping her head back onto Ander’s chest.

 Ras sighed, shaking their head. “She had a tantrum the moment we brought Merrill and Zev into the Temple. The idea that you might have the slightest interest in the modern elves… She insisted that you weren’t you, that the ritual to bring you back must have gone wrong. I didn’t have a choice, she forced…”

“That was the outcome I expected from the moment I decide to send you there, Ras. Nydmisa has never… She never dealt well with things outside her worldview. She hated every thing I ever did that didn’t reflect the glory of my position, every decision I made that wasn’t what my Mother would approve of, you...everything about you and the latitude I allowed you. But if I’d gotten rid of her before, Mother would have snuck a worse spy into my ranks. Easier to deal with the one I knew about, and she was good at her job.” Fox drummed her fingers over her knee, brushing fingertips over Ras’s cheek when they stared at her.

“So, you knew she was spying on you for Mythal, and you just…” Ras hissed, reaching up to rub at their temples. “That why she survived ratting you out when you were sneaking out pretending to be one of your own servants.”

“Yeah… You knew I was doing it, I knew you knew and were sending Shadows out to keep an eye on me… But it was fun until she outright told Mother and I was summoned for a lecture on the dignity due my position in the family.” Her fingers drummed again until Anders caught her hand, laced his fingers with hers. “On the other hand, you also knew she was spying from the moment she was sent to us, as did a disturbing number of my elder Sentinels, and none of you ever got around to having the conversation where I could reassure you that I also knew.”

“Perhaps we had such great faith in your omnipotence that we assumed such a detail could only happen by divine plan,” Ras suggested, nonchalantly sliding as far back on the bed as possible.  Fox licked at one of her teeth, an eyebrow raised expressively as she regarded the oldest of her servants. “On a happier, more conciliatory note…” They reached out, a flare of green light around their fingers as they pulled a large basket out of thin air. “I decided to stop in Amaranthine after all, on the way back from taking your new followers home.” The moment the basket was entirely solid, the Sentinel shoved it at Anders. “As it has been explained to me, I was… less than courteous at our first meeting, Tunan’lan. I still say Sylaise could do better, but… I was.. Here. My Banal’ras and the Warden archer suggested this might help to make amends.”  

Anders gave them a suspicious glare as he took the loose woven wicker basket, clearly preparing a retort. A plaintive, quavering mew came from the basket, and his eyes widened, dampening before he could even get it open. “Oh… Oh, Pounce!” A massive orange tabby scrambled out, shaking itself before sniffing at the human. He purred in satisfaction, headbutting his human affectionately, patting his cheeks with velveted paws and climbing up to wash his face. “Ser Pounce a lot, I didn’t think I’d ever… Oh, Pounce.”

 

“That was a kind thought,” Fox murmured, smiling softly at Rasanis as she walked them to the door, glancing back at her beloved and his long lost pet. 

“I was a little rude with the ultimatum to get out of your life and send you back to us,” they demurred, stepping away from her to stare out a window at the Tevinter bordertown. “Not least of all because he… the Era’elgar does seem to be a good influence on you.”

“As judged by the lack of mysterious piles of mildly aggravating ashes in my wake?” she asked, and they laughed before giving her a carefully quizzical expression.

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about. Surely anyone the Blessed Sylaise saw fit to swat out of existence must have deserved their fate, for the horrendous crime of inconveniencing an evanuris, if nothing else.”  They blinked at her, keeping their face in that blandly servile expression as she sighed.

“Why do I end up with mouthy minions? None of the villains in my books have minions that talk back and question orders constantly,” she noted in resignation, as Rasanis fought back their startled snort. “And none of my siblings’ servants ever did either.”

“Yes, shockingly, when people serving you are allowed actions other than groveling and blind obedience without facing summary execution, we tend to actually speak up. I apologize sincerely for that.”  They leaned against the wall, twining multicolored shadows around their fingers meditatively. “I could go back and spread the word that you’d rather your Sentinels behave more like that pair you rescued from Ghil’anon…”

“No. Mother demanded that set of experiments cease for a reason. Hive minded servants capable of responding to every unvoiced whim crossing our minds? Even to my kind, that is a step beyond... I disliked the idea of letting Ghil’anon drown all of them out of hand one by one, but just the two of them are exhausting in their devotion. If they haven’t woken yet, let them be,” Fox stated flatly. “As much joy as they take in their duties…”

“They creep everyone out. Including you. I can’t imagine how your pretty consort would deal with them, ” Ras snickered at the look on her face as she considered introducing Anders to the most disturbingly devoted of her servants, then sighed again, still spinning bright shadows into tiny shapes between their hands. “In the other city, after everything… You suggested that you had intended… that you once thought I was potentially capable of ascension, as Ghil’anon and June were before me.”

“You have the power needed to catalyst the attempt, yes. But my family has allowed favorites to try before that… Far more died in the attempt than ever joined our ranks, Smoke to my fire. And that was before the Veil altered the magic here, pushed us away from the Fade,” she warned, mirroring their position against the opposite wall. 

“It’s still possible. I knew… I know of some that stepped forward and took the exalted form while Arlathan fell, once the true evanuris were locked away and Fen’harel had vanished. I admit I don’t know how many of those trying to fill the vacuum of power died trying, but…” the illusions in their hands became dragons, wings flaring before they crushed their hands together and reshaped them. “Could I call in one of those favors for your support when I try, if I managed to ascend?”

“Oh, my illusion weaver. My smoke and mirrors.” She crossed the hall to them, reaching up to cradle their face in her hands. “That’s a poor use of a favor. I would never stand in the way of your rise, but… I’m going to be outvoted, even if we present this to the others as a fait accompli when they return. You know that,” she slowly traced the golden markings with a nail, feeling the hum from the magic claiming them as hers. “Falon’din remembers that you spurned him when you were his, he barely tolerates your continued existence at my side. He would never accept you raised up as his equal. Andruil still takes being called an ‘arrow happy bitch’ personally, and Ghil’anon would never take our side against hers. “

“If they return. What the Dread wolf did was… very thorough, and even the ritual we used to retrieve you has prerequisites… If any of the others return,” they repeated, and Sylaise shrugged softly, her hand still curled around their cheek. “Whether I ascend or not, those three returning would set the world in an uproar. They would kill thousands on a whim, because they could, cut people apart to see how the young elves and humans are put together...”

“I know. I can’t say I’m looking forward to the idea of seeing any of them again. I.. I’ve gotten rather used to being an orphaned only child. But they have servants as well, some of them nearly at your level, clever enough to find the ritual you used. Unless we’re very lucky, its when they return, not if, Ras,” she commented, staring up into the mist grey eyes of her oldest companion. “I would be devastated if you didn’t make it, Rasanis. I.. among other things, I haven’t the faintest idea who would keep the other Shadows in line in your place. But-,” She pressed the pads of her fingers to their vallaslin again, an almost voiced offer in her eyes.

“I’ll remain yours a little longer, my Lady,” they softly answered, looking thoughtful as they caught her wrist, pressing a kiss to her palm before she stepped back. “But I will take you up on that someday. After I’ve set a few more things in proper order.”  They cleared their throat, glancing out the window again. “How are those newest strays of yours doing?”

“Julian’s friend met us here, and promptly decided the girls were both close to outgrowing their dresses and terribly out of Tevinter fashion. So they’re off to find new frocks and ribbons while enjoying their first taste of life here.” She flicked a hand in mild amusement, glancing out the window at the courtyard. “I offered to go along, but Julian insists his Magpie will enjoy spoiling the girls all the more if it involves spending his money.”

“You put a great deal of trust in him, leaving him in charge of them here,” Ras remarked, fidgeting with illusions again. Fox got a glimpse of a whirling dervish, all black swirls and golden honey, before her First flicked their fingers nervously. “My banal’ras… This place isn’t the safest for elf shaped people, we’ve noticed. My sunlit shadow refused to let me come here alone, even if he’s skulking in the kitchens at the moment.”

“I trust Julian not to cross me, above all else,” Fox dismissed the idea out of hand, before blinking thoughtfully, shrugging. “The Altims value two things; magical ability and family ties, in that order. They are one of the few families to routinely free any slaves found to have mage gift. The girls are both talented young mages and part of his family through me, he won’t let anything happen to them.” 

“Implying that if they weren’t yours or magical, he’d be far more indifferent to their fate?” Ras asked, and she huffed slightly, shifting her feet uncomfortably.

 It was a little hard to argue with that when all of the magicless Altim children she had grown up around had been disinherited the moment they hit adulthood, pawned off with a paltry allowance or sent to the front lines in Seheron. And considered that an improvement over the family history where those children who failed to display magic just… didn’t survive. She could remember listening to some of the older cousins arguing, debating whether nonmages were soulless or just inferior. “Lesser life forms,” she murmured to herself, recalling the discussion with Justice a few weeks ago. Her Sentinel raised an expressive eyebrow, and she huffed again, pacing further down the hall.  “Regardless of why, they’ll be fine with Julian today. I like to think they’ve gotten more used to not having to hide their magic with the time we’ve spent at Jowan’s farm and Morrigan’s cottage, but this is… Julian uses magic like breathing, whenever it would ease a task. It will be a good influence on how different life will be here.”

“And it gave you and your pet human a chance to relax instead of being dragged along shopping with them?” Ras flitted to the shadows ahead of her, the small image of tiny figures dragged along by even tinier ones pointing excitedly at everything flickering in their hands. 

“It’s been a trip. I wanted a few hours to sit and read without dealing with ponies and puppies and juvenile attempts to play Anders and I against each other,” Fox laughed. “We’ve learned it’s very important to ask what the other said when being asked for anything. Anyway, if Anders and I take them shopping, it’s a chore of behaving and being fitted for practical clothes and maybe we’ll get new books on the way home. If their new, shiny Uncle Julian takes them… It's an adventure, and they get to see how much he’ll let them get away with while Magpie finds them pretty dresses and shows them every sweet shop in town.”

“Translation, Julian will let them get away with anything reasonable, as long as they promise not to tell us that he did. Thus firmly establishing himself as the fun uncle and not the reasonable authority figure we’ve tried to be for them,” Anders remarked, the large tomcat balanced smugly over the back of his shoulders as he joined them. “Rasanis, I don’t think I can ever thank you enough for bringing Pounce back to me.”

“It was nothing. A ten minute detour, most of which was spent finding a basket big enough,” the Sentinel dismissed easily, smiling faintly. Their smile widened as they made it downstairs and a golden blond elf sidled up behind them.  “Banal’ras,” they purred, nuzzling into the Antivan’s hair as he tugged them down into a kiss. “My little sunlit shadow.”

“Only for you would I be here, amore. Tevinter is not the healthiest place for elves, as a general rule,” Zevran mused, blinking contentedly. “Unless you have ridiculous amounts of magic, at any rate.”

“Or the protection of someone with said ridiculous amounts of power,” Fox added. “I promise, I would burn a path out of Tevinter before I let anyone enslave or sacrifice you. Even if you decide Smoke is too much trouble to tolerate.” Ras snorted at that, stepping away from his assassin to prop their elbows on her head and lean hard enough to make her stumble.

“I am more than capable of protecting that which is mine, little fox,” they insisted, half flinching at the look she gave them before smiling.

“I’m well aware. But for the time being, what is yours is under my protection as well. Besides, he’s Amell’s friend as well, and Isabela’s. I’d hate to explain why I let someone sell him for bloodstock,” she explained, slumping back a bit as Anders and Zev winced at the comment. “You’ll be fine. Anders has asylum, which means he’s technically under the Archon’s protection as well as mine. And I assure you, Master Crow, that Rasanis is quite capable of murdering their way to rescue you, beyond what I’ve heard of your own not inconsiderable skills.”

Zevran did smile at that. “I am ridiculously awesome, aren’t I. Even without the magic the rest of you cheat with.” His smirk only widened when all three mages shot him identical sour looks.

“I could probably fix that..” Fox muttered, running through a number of spell forms in her head. “You do have latent talent, even at your age there could be a way to trigger that…”  Ras cleared their throat pointedly, and she sighed. “Maybe not today.”


End file.
